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<p>I’d had little to do with sim manipulation beyond simply expanding or reducing bounds, and almost nothing to do with object manipulation beyond pulling items off the exchange. That had always been Hanne’s game, and while I’d watched her work plenty, it had never been so casually exhausted as Dry Grass’s manipulation here. She worked with such surety, such tiredness on her face, that her age seemed all the more evident. Of course someone more than three centuries old, someone who had spent nearly all of that time here on the System, would be able to move through this world with such ease.</p>
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<p>“Alright,” she said, flumping down into one of the chairs across from the AVEC stage. “I think we are all here. While I would obviously prefer you stay, it is not a requirement. If you need to duck out, feel free to do so. We are just waiting on Günay and we can get going.”</p>
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<p>About twenty people had shown up. It didn’t seem to be twenty clades — there were two Odists, after all, with Dry Grass and another from the eighth stanza, Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help — but the audience remained diverse. Only about half appeared to be human of some sort, with the Marshans, Odists, and Jonases accounting for most of those. I suppose it made sense, given the Odists’ social circle, but that didn’t quite tally with what I knew of Jonas’s role in the leadership of the System. He didn’t strike me as a furry.</p>
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<p>When asked over a sensorium message, Dry Grass replied, <em>“The eighth stanza has been slowly tamping down on Jonas’s role over the years. He has not been nearly as grounded as he once was. Prime quit in grand fashion some years back, and the rest have long since recognized that.”</em> She cast a slight smile in my direction, adding, <em>“Too singularly focused, perhaps. All work and no play makes Jonas lose his fucking marbles.”</em></p>
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<p>When asked over a sensorium message, Dry Grass replied, <em>“The eighth stanza has been slowly tamping down on Jonas’s role over the years. He has not been nearly as in control of things as he once was. Prime quit in grand fashion some years back, and the rest have long since recognized that.”</em> She cast a slight smile in my direction, adding, <em>“Too singularly focused, perhaps. All work and no play makes Jonas lose his fucking marbles.”</em></p>
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<p>I stifled a laugh. It probably shouldn’t have been funny, but the absurdity of the comment clashed just right with the mirrored absurdity of the situation. Probably best not to laugh in front of everyone.</p>
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<p>Just in time, too, as there was a polite chime from the AVEC stage, and Günay faded into being. She was clearly sitting at her own table far different from ours, but some trick of the AVEC software quickly scaled her to the point where it looked as though she was sitting there with us. The opacity was even turned all the way up so that she was just as present as the rest of the attendees.</p>
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<p>“Hey friends,” she said, waving. “Wasn’t expecting an invitation for just me.”</p>
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<p>I was caught off guard by the humor, but many of the others around the table chuckled. </p>
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<p>“I will promise no such thing,” Answers Will Not Help said, giggling.</p>
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<p>Dry Grass elbowed her in the side. “Do not listen to her, she is a snot. You are fine, my dear. No tearing, promise.”</p>
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<p>The systech chuckled nervously, nodding. “Well, alright. Then yeah, Jonas has it. As far as we can tell, there was a sort of CPV bomb set off right at midnight on New Year’s Eve, 2399 which caused a full crash of all instances in less than a minute. With the crash, there was a spike in resource usage and then a precipitous drop.”</p>
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<p>The systech chuckled nervously, nodding. “Well, alright. Then yeah, Jonas has it. As far as we can tell, there was a sort of CPV bomb set off right at midnight on New Year’s Eve, 2399 which caused a full crash of all instances in less than a minute. It was particularly nasty, too, as it inhibited quitting, meaning that <em>everyone</em> crashed, I guess to cause the most damage. With the crash, there was a spike in resource usage and then a precipitous drop.”</p>
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<p>“I’m still confused about that,” Debarre said. “I thought CPV had to be tailored to a single instance or any of their forks that hadn’t individuated much. How is it someone was able to blast the whole System?”</p>
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<p>“We didn’t understand it either. Hell, we didn’t really understand how CPV worked up until recently. It <em>shouldn’t</em> work. It shouldn’t even be possible in the first place.” Günay made a few gestures, doubtless reorganizing some notes in her HUD. “But whatever. Someone figured it out well enough to generalize it and took out everyone on Lagrange.”</p>
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<p>“And who is this ‘someone’?” Selena asked. “The phys-side feeds are being ungated, but it’s a firehose of information to sort through to try and find anything of use.”</p>
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<p>“But wouldn’t the bomb or whatever just go off again every time?”</p>
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<p>“It did the first two times, yeah,” Günay said with a shrug. “Until we patched out the CPV vulnerability.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass let out a surprised laugh. “Wait, you <em>patched out CPV?</em> Entirely?”</p>
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<p>“Well, yeah, we kind of had to, otherwise we’d either have to reconstruct everyone with a memory of crashing, or the same thing would keep happening every time the perpetrator was reconstructed. It took us a good four months of total System downtime working all three shifts to get it done.”</p>
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<p>“Well, yeah, we kind of had to, otherwise we’d either have to reconstruct everyone with a memory of crashing, or the same thing would keep happening every time the perpetrator was reconstructed. It took us a good four months of total System downtime working all three shifts to get it done.”</p>
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<p>Jonas Fa, one of the two Jonases sitting at the table, had been steadily frowning more and more through the conversation, resting his chin on folded hands. Finally, he sat up straight and looked to Answers Will Not Help. “Hey.”</p>
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<p>The Odist let out a groan and kneaded the heels of her palms against her eyes for a moment before leaning back in her chair. “Fuck it. Why not? Might as fucking well.”</p>
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<p>Both forked, and the up-tree instances stepped around the table to face each other. Jonas Fa summoned up a small pocket knife. </p>
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<hr />
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-05-04</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2024-07-18</p>
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</footer>
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</main>
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