update from sparkleup
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<p>“My dear May Then My Name,” she read aloud. “Ioan will be receiving a letter concurrent with this that will bear both the end of an era and the beginning of a game between our two clades. The rules are as follows. First: remember that you love em, that ey loves you. Second: remember who you were, who you are, and imagine what you can become. Third: let go. Fourth: have fun. Fifth: pass this on to Dear#Pollux concurrently with Ioan passing on Codrin’s letter.”</p>
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<p>Eir frown deepened.</p>
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<p>“Fucking foxes, I swear to God,” May said, laughing. “Now, I am assuming that those rules apply to you, too. Remember that I love you and that you love me. Remember who you were, who you are, and imagine what you can be. Let go, have fun, and tell me what the fuck your letter says already.”</p>
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<p>Ey did eir best to square Dear’s ‘game’ with the text of the letter ey’d received. There were so many ways this could go sideways. <em>Let go, hmm?</em> ey thought. <em>I guess there’s nothing for it. Let go and have fun is about all that one can do in this situation.</em></p>
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<p>Ey did eir best to square Dear’s ‘game’ with the text of the letter ey’d received. There were so many ways this could go sideways. <em>Let go, hmm?</em> ey thought. <em>I guess there’s nothing for it. Let go and try to have fun is about all that one can do in this situation.</em></p>
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<p>“Alright,” ey said, holding up the letter to read aloud. “Ioan, I hope you are well. We have finished our talks with the Artemisians in grand fashion. They have invited us to become their ‘fifthrace’, meaning that as many of us as would like are able to join them on Artemis, and the DMZ will be expanded to allow a portion of them to join us. There is so much more that I can say here, and will say in future letters, but this one comes with a specific purpose.”</p>
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<p>“God, even when you talk to each other, you are nerds.”</p>
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<p>Ey forced a laugh, shaking eir head. “May Then My Name will be receiving a note from Dear about a game. I’m not entirely sure I understand it, but it promises me it’s an Odist thing. When I think too hard about it, I get anxious all over again, but Dear keeps telling me to “let go and have fun”, so I suppose all I can say to you is the same.”</p>
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@ -52,13 +52,15 @@
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<p>“But ey still knows–“</p>
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<p>“Who the fuck cares about the Name?” she said, swinging eir arms playfully as she held onto eir hands. “It is a stupid hook. It is a way to make us seem more mysterious than we really are. What began as a way of protecting our friend’s identity during a shaky political period turned into a way to control how we were perceived. It is our own personal MacGuffin.”</p>
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<p>“Wait, what? Really?”</p>
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<p>“Yes, really. Obviously, I do not want to share it. Dear does not want to share it. We are still serious about not wanting to share it. Serious enough for one of the conservatives to assassinate one of our own, even. This is a dynamic that has arisen over time, though. The Name itself does not matter anymore. The bearer of it has been lost to time, and any reason to keep it confidential is lost along with them, but it became a hook, and then it became an identity.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, really. Obviously, I do not want to share it. Dear does not want to share it. We are still serious about not wanting to share it. Serious enough for one of the conservatives to assassinate one of our own, even. This is a dynamic that has arisen over time, though. The Name itself does not matter anymore. The bearer of it has been lost to time, and any reason to keep it confidential is lost along with em, but it became a hook, and then it became an identity.”</p>
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<p>“‘Em’?”</p>
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<p>She winked.</p>
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<p>Ey shook eir head numbly. “You’re all completely nuts.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, well, tough shit. We have rules to follow, remember? I love you dearly, and I know you love me. I remember who I was. I was built for a purpose, and then I was a tool of True Name’s. That is no longer who I am, though, is it? I have changed, and I can imagine who I will become. I can let go of this anxiety around names enough to understand what Dear is doing. And hell, it really is fun. You are stuck with me, Ioan Bălan.”</p>
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<p>Ey lifted eir arm up, nudging May to twirl, balletic, beneath it. “Yes, yes. Stuck with the world’s most annoying skunk. I don’t totally understand, but I trust you on this. You can play your game all you want, but can we head back now? I left my coffee behind and you have therapy in a little bit.”</p>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-17</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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<p>So extreme was the temperature in so small a space that the barrier between the two, that shimmer of heat-haze, appeared to be a very literal wall extending as far as he could see in either direction, though after a few dozen yards, the forest encroached right up to the barrier once more, impossibly dense, impassible.</p>
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<p>And there, right in the middle of the clearing, sitting flush against the wall of heat, sat a low tollbooth. There was a glass-walled cubicle, large enough for one person to sit on a stool, huddling beneath a canopy, a small A/C unit gasping and rattling atop it. A red and white striped gate blocked a concrete sidewalk leading directly into the desert.</p>
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<p>The whole affair was dusty and tired, as though it had weathered a hundred sandstorms and would doubtless weather a hundred more, though it would never be truly clean again.</p>
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<p>To the side of the tollbooth, straddling the border, a squat, flat building sat, fronted by a sign declaring it to be ‘Customs’. From the roof, an aged radio tower reached toward the sky: a narrow pyramid of angle-iron painted in that same red and white. A light flashed sleepily at the top.</p>
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<p>To the side of the tollbooth, straddling the border, a squat, flat building sat, fronted by a sign declaring it to be ‘Customs — Please Use Other Door’. From the roof, an aged radio tower reached toward the sky: a narrow pyramid of angle-iron painted in that same red and white. A light flashed sleepily at the top.</p>
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<p>“You guys are really weird, you know that, right?”</p>
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<p>True Name gave a flourish of a bow, laughing. “Of course, my dear. You will go through customs soon, but until then, please follow me.”</p>
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<p>The skunk led him up to the gate beside the tollbooth — a peek inside showed the hazy form of an older gentleman dozing within, chin resting on his chest. The gate lifted automatically, and when they walked through, there was the briefest rush of heat, the haze of the barrier washing over them like a waterfall, enough to dazzle the eyes so that they arrived at the courtyard he knew so well by now as though through a dream.</p>
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<p>The space had been subtly re-structured, repurposed from a conference space to a small, comfortable plaza. The cloistered walk remained, as did the fountain, but the plaza itself had been made much larger, the trees spaced further apart, and comfortable seating of diverse shape spread throughout.</p>
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<p>“This will be the entryway that those arriving to the DMZ will see,” True Name said.”It is intended to be an area where the newly arrived can orient themselves, but also one that will be pleasant for those who have visited before. We are working with a few sim architects from Artemis to introduce a few mixed aspects of greenery and architecture to make it feel familiar to all.”</p>
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<p>“This will be the entryway that those arriving to the DMZ will see,” True Name said.”It is intended to be an area where the newly arrived can orient themselves, but also one that will be pleasant for those who have visited before. We are working with a few sim architects from Artemis to introduce a few mixed aspects of greenery and architecture to make it feel familiar to all five races.”</p>
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<p>“Are we going to keep calling it the DMZ?”</p>
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<p>She shook her head. “That would not be a good look, no. We have a short list of names that we are in the process of workshopping. The current top of the list is simply Convergence, though ‘Gemini’ and simply ‘the shared space’ are also in the list.”</p>
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<p>He shook his head. “Gemini doesn’t fit. Tyndareus, if you want to stick with the Castor and Pollux names, but that’d make more sense for Legrange. I like Convergence best.”</p>
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<p>“Convergence it is, then,” the skunk said, laughing and gesturing him toward a shaded bench. “Beyond this area, however, there is not much else. We have a smaller version of our compound already ported over, and I am pleased that you have agreed to let us bring your field over.”</p>
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<p>“Convergence it is, then,” the skunk said, chuckling and gesturing him toward a shaded bench. “Beyond this area, however, there is not much else. We have a smaller version of our compound already ported over, and I am pleased that you have agreed to let us bring your field over.”</p>
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<p>Tycho sat on the bench and leaned back against it, looking out into the plaza. “Nothing else, though?”</p>
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<p>“Not yet. The border will open officially later today to both members of Castor and Artemis. The passage into Convergence will be rate-limited throughout this process. We will ensure that this area does not beggar the rest of the System for capacity, as we were informed during the conference that the Artemisians all take up a bit more space than we do, as should probably be expected by five-thousand year old consciousnesses. Still, we are not hurting for space.”</p>
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<p>“Yeah, though thankfully they’re not carrying around an entire five millennia of memory.”</p>
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<p>“Very true,” she said. She gestured to the space before them, willing a small table into being, along with two glasses of iced coffee, one of which she took for herself.</p>
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<p>He took his own glass and sipped. It was quite good.</p>
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<p>“Are you excited to join them, then?”</p>
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<p>He sat in silence, drinking his coffee and looking at nothing in particular from the dappled shade. Too many thoughts crowded his head, none of them worth thinking, and once again, an idea sat within his gut, demanding to be spoken. He savored it intentionally, rather than shying away from it as he had the last one.</p>
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<p>He sat in silence, drinking his coffee and looking at nothing in particular from the dappled shade. Too many thoughts crowded his head, none of them worth thinking, and once again, an idea sat within his gut, demanding to be spoken. He savored it intentionally, rather than shying away from it as he had the last one. The feeling of these decisions was becoming familiar. ‘Trust your gut’ indeed.</p>
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<p>“Tycho?”</p>
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<p>“I’m going to invest fully.”</p>
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<p>True Name blinked several times as she processed the statement, then grinned wide. “I would call that excited, yes. I am very happy for you.”</p>
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<p>“Right. I’m sorry that you and Why Ask Questions or Answers Will Not Help will not be joining us. It’d be nice to have the emissaries together there.”</p>
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<p>“We will visit once more before Artemis leaves effective Ansible range, but no, we will not stay.”</p>
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<p>“Well, as I said, I’ll miss you.”</p>
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<p>She bowed her head in acknowledgement.</p>
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<p>She bowed her head in acknowledgement, ears splayed.</p>
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<p>“And you’ll get to meet your fair share of Artemisians here, as well.”</p>
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<p>She nodded, smiling. “I will, yes. We will still have plenty to do, even if we do not remain aboard Artemis. We will visit there, and it sounds like some of them will visit here and not remain. Codrin has talked Dear into giving one of its performances in Convergence so that Iska may see, though they will not remain here.”</p>
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<p>She nodded, smiling once more. “I will, yes. We will still have plenty to do, even if we do not remain aboard Artemis. We will visit there, and it sounds like some of them will visit here and not remain. Codrin has talked Dear into giving one of its performances in Convergence so that Iska may see, though they will not remain here.”</p>
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<p>“Oh? Did it say whether it would try to see one of their performances aboard Artemis?”</p>
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<p>“It was undecided, last I heard.”</p>
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<p>“And the other delegates?”</p>
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<p>They sat in quiet, then, finishing their coffees and then watching the ice melt in the mellow warmth of the day.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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