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Madison Scott-Clary
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<h1 id="codrin-balancastor-2325">Codrin Bălan#Castor — 2325</h1>
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<p>After their “deaths”, such as they were, Dear cackled madly and ran about the still roaring bonfire, prancing and leaping, forking dozens of copies as it went. Its sim had been set up in the Launch Systems, both Castor and Pollux, precisely as it had in the L<sub>5</sub> System, down to all of the decorations and flames. As soon as they had transferred themselves over to those Systems — something which they had been told would take several minutes across the micro-Ansibles connecting the three systems, but which was as subjectively instantaneous as any normal transit — they were alone. The crowd was gone, the singing was gone, and any chance of reversibility had gone with them. There was no way that Codrin or Dear or Dear’s partner could ever go back. The transit was one-way. <em>“There is no going and there is no back,”</em> Dear had been saying for months now.</p>
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<p>After their ‘deaths‘5, such as they were, Dear cackled madly and ran about the still roaring bonfire, prancing and leaping, forking dozens of copies as it went. Its sim had been set up in the Launch Systems, both Castor and Pollux, precisely as it had in the L<sub>5</sub> System, down to all of the decorations and flames. As soon as they had transferred themselves over to those Systems — something which they had been told would take several minutes across the micro-Ansibles connecting the three systems, but which was as subjectively instantaneous as any normal transit — they were alone. The crowd was gone, the singing was gone, and any chance of reversibility had gone with them. There was no way that Codrin or Dear or Dear’s partner could ever go back. The transit was one-way. <em>“There is no going and there is no back,”</em> Dear had been saying for months now.</p>
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<p><em>“It is done! It is done!</em> the fox hollered. <em>“It is done and those poor saps did not even get to finish their song! Oh, to see their faces! Crumbling sim, friends forever cut off!”</em></p>
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<p>Dear’s partner also laughed, hopping to their feet and chasing after the fox in a drunken dash, leaving Codrin to sit and smile and watch and think.</p>
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<p>There was no more Codrin in the L<sub>5</sub> System. Ey was only here. Ey couldn’t remember being there, for were the sims not the same? And if ey had never been there, had ey ever really existed there? Ey was only memories, and perhaps that is all ey had ever been. Navel gazing and existential crises mixed with the glee of having actually <em>done</em> something. No longer just the passive amanuensis, but now the active participant.</p>
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<p>Ey was awake only enough to say, “I hope so.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-17</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-06</p>
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<p>It had shrugged at that. <em>“All I have seen is prairie, and I have walked for days out there. Serene is no less a trickster than I, however, and I would not be surprised if there is something out there, perhaps triggered by a mood or a word.”</em></p>
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<p>And so when eir mind was too tangled up in itself to get anything done, Codrin would walk and walk and walk, always with the idea at the back of eir mind that perhaps ey would stumble across a creek or a cave that ey could bring Dear out to see.</p>
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<p>The endless prairie also provided an outlet to seek solitude.</p>
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<p>Moving in with Dear and its parter had been decided on a whim, originally as a way to complete the project ey had undertaken, and then when their relationship began to encompass em as well, ey had found emself suddenly surrounded by those other than emself.</p>
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<p>Moving in with Dear and its partner had been decided on a whim, originally as a way to complete the project ey had undertaken, and then when their relationship began to encompass em as well, ey had found emself suddenly surrounded by those other than emself.</p>
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<p>This had had its ups and downs. Ey did not realize that a not insubstantial portion of what ey had previously labeled boredom or listlessness had been loneliness. That feeling of becoming a part of something that required emotional investment and paid back emotional dividends had fulfilled em in a way that ey had not expected. Ey had talked about this with Ioan a year or so after ey had noticed it, and eir down-tree instance had agreed far more readily than ey had expected, saying that the Ode clade project had led to something of a sea change within em, and then reminded Codrin that ey had merged before moving in with Dear and had both perspectives within em now, solitary and social.</p>
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<p>However, it had meant that that part of em which was built up of things solitary now required conscious intervention to satisfy. Ioan had needed to seek out the social, and now Codrin needed to seek out the solitary.</p>
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<p>Ey needed to be away from Dear.</p>
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<p>The questions would wait. It was time to just be.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-17</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-06</p>
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<p>Codrin watched the reactions of the other guests, making note of how they both treated him with some mix of deference and awe that ey could not quite place.</p>
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<p>Dear’s partner explained as Codrin followed them to the kitchen. “That’s Yared Zerezghi. If the Odists are to thank for Secession sys-side, he’s to thank for it phys-side. He wrote the amendment that formalized Secession among the other phys-side governments.”</p>
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<p>Ey stopped halfway through opening a bottle of wine. “Really? I wasn’t expecting a dinner full of politicians.”</p>
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<p>They laughed. “I don’t think any of them would call themselves politicians. Dear would call itself an “interested party” or something similarly vague. I think Debarre would call himself a guide, or maybe a dupe. user11824 would just call himself boring. Get used to that word, he uses it a lot.”</p>
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<p>They laughed. “I don’t think any of them would call themselves politicians. Dear would call itself an ‘interested party’ or something similarly vague. I think Debarre would call himself a guide, or maybe a dupe. user11824 would just call himself boring. Get used to that word, he uses it a lot.”</p>
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<p>“And Yared? He seems, I don’t know, nervous.”</p>
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<p>“He was just a DDR junkie. He followed politics as a hobby, but with a single-minded focus that made him attractive to both phys- and sys-side on the debate.” They shrugged and pulled down wine glasses from the cabinet one by one. “I think he’d call himself a pawn. A puppet, maybe. The nervousness stems from being so thoroughly used by both sides and now coming to the house of an Odist, I think, but don’t quote me on that. Take these.”</p>
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<p>Codrin frowned, nodded, and accepted two of the glasses to carry out with the wine, while Dear’s partner brought out the other four.</p>
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<p>“And we know that Paul won that debate.”</p>
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<p>Yared nodded. “Yes. As soon as it was decided that anyone could become a Christian without becoming a Jew, Christianity effectively became its own religion, not beholden to the laws of Judaism.”</p>
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<p>“I can kind of see where this is going,” Codrin said slowly. “Secession is rather like the point at which the System effectively became its own country.”</p>
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<p>“Bear with me. What your partner showed me was an alternate telling of this story. Sometime back in medieval Europe, a Jewish community started circulating an old story called “Toledot Yeshu”, which means something like the ancestry or generations of Jesus. Much of it is a retelling of the gospels with Jesus as a trickster magician. But Paul in this story becomes something more interesting, apologies to present company.”</p>
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<p>“Bear with me. What your partner showed me was an alternate telling of this story. Sometime back in medieval Europe, a Jewish community started circulating an old story called ‘Toledot Yeshu’, which means something like the ancestry or generations of Jesus. Much of it is a retelling of the gospels with Jesus as a trickster magician. But Paul in this story becomes something more interesting, apologies to present company.”</p>
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<p>user11824 rolled his eyes and finished his wine.</p>
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<p>“In Toledot Yeshu, Paul is actually hinted at being a plant from the Jewish authorities, though it is vague as to who, whose goal was to introduces enough changes to the budding religion to cause it to split away so that it wouldn’t remain a sect of Judaism.”</p>
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<p><em>“Many viewed Jesus as a rabbi,”</em> Dear interjected. <em>“And had that lasted to the point where Judaism headed into a rabbinical tradition, his teachings would have become part of the faith and Judaism would have looked very different.”</em></p>
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<p>They all watched as Dear and Debarre drank to each other and those who were gone.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-06</p>
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<p>“May, please.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, she did.”</p>
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<p>“So that you could steer me?”</p>
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<p>“Yes”</p>
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<p>“Yes.”</p>
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<p>“So that you could, what, make me like you? Become my lover or trusted confidant?”</p>
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<p>There were no words from the skunk. She just sat, shoulders shaking.</p>
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<p>Ioan let out a breath, realizing partway through that it was coming out as a laugh. “That’s really fucked up, May.”</p>
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<p>Ey grinned, nodded, and made a mental note to ensure that Douglas remembered the suggestion ey’d given almost a year back, that he’d be ready to upload in time.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<p>John said, “You’re covered almost entirely in black fur. You’d be warm in Antarctica.”</p>
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<p>She responded, “Well, yes, I am <em>here</em>. If I were actually in Antarctica, however, I would not be covered by fur that is a part of my body. A fur coat might be nice, however.”</p>
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<p>I asked, “How does that work, anyway? Do you feel like a human except in a different shape?”</p>
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<p>Her response was a while in coming. “Yes and no. I look different, to be sure. Anyone who has seen a furry can probably imagine what that means. My av on the ‘net allowed me some sensation of that, in that I was provided with a vague sense of touch on my tail, and the sensation of my ears had been moved higher up on my head to approximate the location where the ears of [my species] are located. Having a muzzle worked well enough. Here, though, the proprioception is complete in a way that an avatar could not hope to be. It made the avatar feel more like a set of clothes and a mask than it did an actual form. Here, it is my form. It made my avatar feel almost cartoonish, with the standard fur patterns a bit too exact and the claws on my fingers nearly identical. Here it can be — must be — as detailed as I would like. My claws wear at different rates, fur colors mingle organically. That is a sign of aposematism, did you know that? It is a warning to those who would attack to stay away. I could even smell like my species, should I choose, though I have not”</p>
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<p>Her response was a while in coming. “Yes and no. I look different, to be sure. Anyone who has seen a furry can probably imagine what that means. My av on the ‘net allowed me some sensation of that, in that I was provided with a vague sense of touch on my tail, and the sensation of my ears had been moved higher up on my head to approximate the location where the ears of [my species] are located. Having a muzzle worked well enough. Here, though, the proprioception is complete in a way that an avatar could not hope to be. It made the avatar feel more like a set of clothes and a mask than it did an actual form. Here, it is my form. It made my avatar feel almost cartoonish, with the standard fur patterns a bit too exact and the claws on my fingers nearly identical. Here it can be — must be — as detailed as I would like. My claws wear at different rates, fur colors mingle organically. That is a sign of aposematism, did you know that? It is a warning to those who would attack to stay away. I could even smell like my species, should I choose, though I have not.”</p>
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<p>John said, “Confirmed. She smells like flowers.”</p>
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<p>I asked, “Why did you chose that form?”</p>
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<p>She said, “Because I wanted to and I could. It is what I am used to from my time before uploading. I think that I originally chose it for that concept of aposematism. I had probably gone through a bad breakup and was looking for something that said, “Stay away, I am independent.” I had terrible luck with relationships.”</p>
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<p>He just knew that he needed something spicy to eat and at least two glasses of wine.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-20</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-06</p>
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<p>When Jonas Prime first saw her after that meeting, he had sat up straight from where he had been lounging on his apartment’s couch, pointed his finger at her, and all but shouted, “Perfect! I don’t know what you did or how, but it’s fucking perfect.”</p>
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<p>She had laughed, given a bow, and stood up straighter once more. “Glad you approve. I figured if I am going to continue not being a politician, I really ought to look the part.”</p>
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<p>“I’m surprised you didn’t work it in bit by bit, but it’ll go over well.”</p>
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<p>It did, thankfully. When she met with a few of the council members — Debarre and Zeke, thankfully — in order to request the delay on the meeting, they had both complimented her on her looks. She explained it away as wanting try looking “a little less dumpy”, a calculated phrase which had gotten a laugh out of Zeke.</p>
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<p>It did, thankfully. When she met with a few of the council members — Debarre and Zeke, thankfully — in order to request the delay on the meeting, they had both complimented her on her looks. She explained it away as wanting try looking ‘a little less dumpy’, a calculated phrase which had gotten a laugh out of Zeke.</p>
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<p>But now, the time had come to actually have the council meeting, which was taking place on a set of benches set alongside the edge of a well manicured pond. The S-R Bloc trio showed up in high-collared coats, hats, and sun-glasses.</p>
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<p>“This is utterly ridiculous,” Jonas said. “I feel like we’re about to start meeting sleeper agents from foreign powers to discuss what intel we’ve picked up in the last month.”</p>
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<p>One of the Russians, in a rare sign of outward emotion, grinned broadly. “I thought you of all people would enjoy, Jonas.”</p>
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<p>“What is next? Probably keeping in touch with Yared and helping him draft the amendment. I am sure that most of it will be councilor Demma’s work, but that he has been given at least partial responsibility means that we will — must — have a hand in it as well.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-06</p>
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