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<p>We chatted for a while longer before I noticed that Hanne had started to doze off, and I nudged us both to bed for the night.</p>
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<p>My dreams were scattered, disorganized. In some of these scattered images, everyone who had gone missing suddenly returned, but unchanged. Sometimes they were mute. Sometimes they never smiled. Sometimes they were completely normal, but missing some integral memory, something that made them <em>them.</em></p>
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<p>Other images throughout the night veered away from fear and into grief. Marsh was gone. They were <em>gone.</em> There was a hole in the world that would never be patched, and my dreams lingered on that lack. In my dreams, there was a literal hole in the world, a blackness that ate all light, and we could do nothing to avoid it. It was in the way of wherever we most needed to go.</p>
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<p>The morning greeted me with a rising sun, another mug of coffee, and a queue of messages to work through.</p>
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<p>These last fell into three camps. Several were messages from friends that were well-wishes for the work at hand, offers of condolences for the loss of Marsh, suggestions for things to try. These were all shelved for later. At some point, I’d have the spoons to respond to them, but certainly not now.</p>
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<p>The second camp were ones surrounding the grief and loss of others. These were messages from friends that relayed stories of their own losses. Partners disappearing mid-conversation. Friends no longer sitting across from them at the bar. Games interrupted, now, apparently, never to be completed. These I mostly passed on to Sedge. My emotional bandwidth was running thin. Too many dreams. Too many strange floods of stranger emotions over the last few days.</p>
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<p>The final camp I eventually tagged ‘work’. These were a handful of messages, mostly from Sedge and Dry Grass, that pertained to plans for the rest of the day, items on various checklists that they wanted help ticking off.</p>
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<p>I read these more slowly. Where there were questions, I answered as I could or, if not, delegated to the rest of the clade or other friends. Where my own attention was requested, I gave my opinions as I had them.</p>
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<p>I’d apparently been tapped as one of the organizers, a sort of liaison between our two clades, one who, as one of the messages hinted, had his shit together in a way that the rest of the clade did not. I counted myself flattered, though it also rankled that that had become my defining feature while I felt like I was only flailing, trying to pin down emotions while kicking myself for not doing more to directly address the clade’s own problems. How could I be a manager when I couldn’t even figure out my own problems?</p>
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<p>I put a halt to that line of thinking by repeatedly telling myself that my problems were now almost universal, that the feelings around Marsh being missing were now feelings that were being felt by millions, if not billions, of people all over Lagrange.</p>
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<p>After finishing my message triage, my coffee, and the making of the bed, I stepped out of the bedroom, only to find the rest of the house empty. A note on the table from Hanne explained that she was meeting up with yet more friends from her construct artistry group.</p>
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<p>I sighed.</p>
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<p>No distractions, no reason to stick around, nowhere I wanted to visit. Might as well head back to Marsh’s study, one part of the <em>de facto</em> headquarters for much of the response to this mass crashing event, and catch up with those who had taken charge.</p>
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<p>“Reed,” Dry Grass said, bowing informally and immediately leading me gently by the elbow out of Marsh’s study, explaining as she went. “We are preparing for a meeting coming up in about half an hour. Messages are being sent from in there. I would not wish to distract the senders. Please step to Workroom#22a2392c in the future.”</p>
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<p>“Oh? This representative sample meeting?”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “Yes. I am pleased you are here; I would like the Marshans well represented, as well.”</p>
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<p>“Sure, if you say so,” I said, shrugging. “I’m still not really clear on what exactly it is.”</p>
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<p>“It is intended to be a sample of clades from across the System that have been hit in various ways. You are here, with your root instance gone. We are here, to represent the founders who have been hit to a lesser extent, yet who have experience being without a root instance. Andréa C. Mason#Central of the CERES clade will be there. They lost nearly seventy thousand instances.”</p>
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<p>“Jesus,” I murmured. “I remember you mentioning that on the first day, and I still can’t quite get over that number.”</p>
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<p>“Neither can I,” she said, gaze drifting down and to the side. “This corruptive event hit everyone differently, and with such numbers as we have here on Lagrange, some clades were bound to get hit far harder than others. Debarre will be there as well, both as a political figure as well as a member of a clade of about one hundred that lost zero instances.”</p>
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<p>“So it’s just a bunch of clades getting together to talk about what happened?”</p>
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<p>She shrugged. “What happened. What to do. What to ask for.”</p>
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<p>I frowned. “‘Ask for’?”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass guided the two of us through the workroom, picking up more instances as we went with a gentle tap to the shoulder. “I do not mean to speak of reparations, though that may at some point come into play. What we might ask for are reassurances. We might want fixes. We may want greater visibility into the day-to-day running of the System. SERG may request–”</p>
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<p>“SERG?”</p>
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<p>“System Emergency Response Group. They may request greater access to the lower levels of the System’s functionalities.” She smiled faintly, tapping one last person — Debarre, it turned out — on the shoulder. “I am having to ramp up on all of this quite quickly. I stepped away from my role as systech a long, <em>long</em> time ago, with a long-lived up-tree taking over my role.”</p>
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<p>“They can’t merge down?”</p>
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<p>“They no longer exist, Reed.”</p>
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<p>“Oh,” I said dumbly, averting my gaze.</p>
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<p>She rested a hand on my shoulder. “It is okay,” she said, smiling reassuringly. “Or, well, it is not okay, but I understand. You did not know. I am dealing with the loss by burying myself in work. On that note, let us join the others, yes? I have ACLs enough to set up the room better.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-11-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-11-28</p>
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