True Name — 2124

It was Jonas’s time to pick the location for their meeting, but as he had scheduled it for a few hours from the time of the message, The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream decided to spend a bit of time exploring fanciful cocktails at the Kowloon Walled City/central corridor mega mall/parking lot rooftop bar.

Her first drink was a total wash. Someone had decided to explore the utility of sulfurous odors in drinks by combining the smoke of a newly lit match, a slice of preserved egg, and some smokey mezcal, sweetened by a few squirts of over-ripe apricot puree.

There was, True Name discovered, essentially no place for sulfur in a cocktail. It was a drink that was almost good, so long as one didn’t breathe in the scent. The first heady whiff that she got had burnt her nostrils and she only managed a few sips after that.

Her next drink was some bracingly strong lime-and-bitters-and-liquor deal with a float of foam made of egg whites and pork fat. There was a dusting of star anise and cinnamon on top. Her final assessment: pleasantly disgusting. The lime, egg whites, and spices all worked quite well together, she imagined, but the added porky fat clashed with it in such a savory way that she suspected it would’ve gone better with some brown spirit.

Still, she drank it all.

Her final drink was a weak, British style ale that, she was informed, used a mixture of herbs rather than hops as the bittering agent. Spruce and henbane, the first of which left her with an almost-unpleasant subdermal itching and the latter of which left her vision tinted red and her intoxication higher than it might have been, otherwise.

Terrible. Delightful

She let that intoxication linger as she prowled through one of the mall sections of the solid block of building. She paced along balconies, fingering wilting leaves of variegated plants, scratching a claw through the grime of countless hands accumulated on faux-wood banisters. She peered through grates at shelves still speckled with abandoned gadgets and folded jeans. She sat in the food court, still smelling of rancid grease and sanitizer. She breathed in the stale, over-conditioned air, and wondered for the thousandth time just who had thought to create such a sim, and what sort of twisted nostalgia had led them to do so.

It was as she stood in front of a quiescent fountain that it occurred to her that this place — the mall, the dingy city, the parking structure and its shoddily crafted drinks — was all a monument to the imperfections of mankind’s countless attempts to provide for itself in so many imperfect ways.

They were here. They were immortal. They could build perfection. They could live their lives in eternal bliss, and yet they still got their kicks out of the temporary and the imperfect. They were, despite the arguments, still human in so many delightfully crazed ways. The cracks still shone through, even when presented with the opportunity of perfection. They were the futurological congress of yore, where even the idea of queuing had been romanticized and pushed into the realm of the transgressive. Even these poor fools who had the limitless expanses of the mind before them knew that, in some ways, it was their origins that made them complete.

And it was intoxicating.

It was intoxicating in such a way as to leave the skunk feeling somehow more complete than she had expected. There was no speciation. She was complete in all her humanity, as were all who uploaded. By her very imperfections, she was complete.

What, then was the difference?

She picked at a coin that had cemented itself to the rim of the fountain in a layer of slimy algae, winced at the unpleasant sensation, and then flicked it into the murky-green water that still stained the basin of the fountain.

There was a part of her mind that was tempted to consider those who lived sys-side as some how more perfect beings than those who remained phys-side. But no, that wasn’t quite correct. They were different, yes, but they weren’t some greater form of perfection — or perhaps not entirely.

Were they perhaps some core difference in ideals? Obviously, given the cost of uploading, there was a natural barrier, but even among the upper-middle and higher classes, there were some who simply chose not to upload. What was the difference? Was it aspirational? Were those who uploaded on some different wavelength from those who stayed behind? There were certainly many who found the whole process abhorrent on a physical level, yes. Of those who found it distasteful on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels, what did the prospect of continuing to live phys-side provide that living sys-side did not?

She couldn’t decide, but there was the logical fallout of that situation, that the two should be treated on a fundamentally different level, when it came to politics.

There was the slight twinge of a sensory alarm, and she knew that it was time for the meeting with Jonas.

He had chosen a war-gaming room for the meeting. There in the middle of the room was a backlit map of Earth at least five meters long, and scattered across its surface were dozens of chess pieces — knights, pawns, queens — which had been pushed this way and that by long sticks that still rested along the edges of the table.

A smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. How very like him.

Jonas was sitting at the other end of the table, eating small hors d’oeuvres from a paper plate, cocktail weenies spiked with toothpicks and finger sandwiches.

As soon as he noticed True Name standing at the edge of the light that lit the table, he grinned and gestured with his plate toward the hot-and-cold buffet lining one of the walls.

Oh well, why not, she thought, willing away the drunkenness and instead loading up a plate with bruschetta and pita crisps with hummus.

“You’re looking well today,” Jonas said, once he had finished his mouthful. “Have an exciting jaunt?”

She laughed. “Why? Were you watching me?”

He shrugged.

“Well, it was exciting as could be expected. I got a lot of thinking done. A lot of planning. Which one of you are you, by the way?”

“Jonas Prime, today.”

True Name nodded a greeting and focused on her hummus for a few moments.

Once it was clear that she had reached a pause, Jonas spoke up. “Tell me about your thoughts and plans. I’m curious what it is that required alcohol to understand.”

“I was thinking about the difference in politics phys-side and sys-side.”

He sat up straighter, waiting for her to continue.

“I think that it is a matter of aspirations. We who have uploaded have different goals in life than those who remain behind. Perhaps it is worth approaching them in different ways.

“Hmm, that’s true.” He looked thoughtful. “We’ve already been doing that, to an extent.”

“Yes, but perhaps it is time to do so intentionally. If the goal of politics is to steer groups of individuals, then perhaps it is time to figure out the different ways in which to steer them. The motivations of those on the System are highly independent, surrounding whatever brings them the most freedom to accomplish what it is that they want. Them in particular, rather than large groups, though smaller groups may have goals that are aligned as well.”

Jonas frowned down to his remaining weenies, then set the plate aside. “And phys-side?”

“Larger groups. They may feel that they have individual goals, but, whether or not it is in the fore of their thoughts, they know that the best way to accomplish them is to band together with those who share similar enough goals.”

“An astute observation.”

True Name let the non-compliment slide over her, continuing. “If we are to steer the council, then we must approach it with an eye to the goals shared by dreamers, and if we are to steer affairs phys-side, then we must approach it with an eye toward something broader, offering sugar-coated compromises that feel like wins.”

Jonas’s frown deepened. “You’re a bit further along in this than maybe I gave you credit for.”

The skunk leaned forward, resting her chin on folded hands. She refused to rise to the bait offered, choosing instead a thoughtful expression. “Your forks. Do they work on a similar dialectic?”

He nodded.

“Then perhaps it would be smart for me to do similar. I do like your idea of continuing to be seen as a single individual to the council. I am not sure that I am willing to cycle through my forks for that, however, so perhaps I will continue to act as the point of contact that the other council members see, and simply consult with my forks via regular merging.”

“It’s not a bad idea, no, and with a small clade, some of whom already look like you, you can probably get away with it easily enough. I have to make sure only one of me is out and about where people might see me at a time.” He grinned, adding with a wink, “At least, while working. Ar is out drinking.”

The skunk laughed. “Of course. Hopefully he has better luck with drinks than I did.”

There was a lull in the conversation as True Name crunched her way through the bruschetta on her plate.

After she finished, she spoke up again. “The only problem that I see is that I will need to save up reputation, and then hide the expenditures as best I can. Do you have experience on that?”

Jonas visibly brightened. “Oh! There’s no need to do that. You can push some reputation into your name by having the members of your clade vote you up. Make something silly. Take up poetry. Release it out into the world whether it’s good or not, then have your cocladists build it up higher.”

“Cocladists, huh? Is that the term we are going with?”

He shrugged.

“Well, alright. I will put on some monologues I remember from phys-side.”

“Alright. Let me know when you do, and I’ll upvote them, too. It’s not like there’s no reason to, we talk often enough as council-members.”

True Name laughed. After a moment’s concentration, two additional versions of her appeared behind her chair, waved to Jonas, and stepped out of the sim. “I had just enough for two, and I figure two ought to be enough for now.”

“Do they have equally silly names?”

Once more, she resisted the urge to bridle at his comment. Instead she smiled sweetly. “Why Ask Questions, Here At The End Of All Things and Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help.” After a pause, she added, “Why Ask Questions and Answers Will Not Help.”

The man froze, the last of his cocktail sausages halfway between plate and mouth. That mouth now slowly formed into a devious grin. “You continue to surprise and amaze, my dear.”

After they had both finished their plates of appetizers and enjoyed a moment of silence, they each began pushing around a few chess pieces off the map.

“We have Yared in NEAC,” True Name said, pushing a pawn over to Addis Ababa. “And you said you know some in the Western Fed, yes?”

Jonas nodded, pushing two queens, two pawns, and a knight over the chessboard. The knight in the British aisles, “A judge. He’s easily bribed. We can’t do it ourselves, of course, but we can find those who will. He’ll be useful for influencing some legislation whenever cases regarding uploads come up.”

One of the queens wound up in Germany, the other on the east coast of North America. “Two representatives. Both were good friends. Both too sly for their own good. I’m surprised they haven’t gotten flushed out, yet, but we can keep using them until they do. I think they’ll be useful in pushing for the legislation — both the core bill, and the launch amendment.”

“How about the secession amendment?” True Name asked.

“Probably, assuming there is one.”

“I think there will be.”

Jonas gave her a strange look, but instead of replying, pushed one pawn to the toe of Italy’s boot and the other to the northern end of the central corridor. “Two other friends. DDR junkies, mostly, but very loud ones. This one–” he said, tapping at the one on the central corridor. “–is reactionary and easy to influence, if you feed him the right information, and this one–” He tapped the one on Italy. “–is one of those calm-voice-of-reason types. He would be hard to influence, but it sounds like he’s already mostly in agreement with our dear Yared.”

True Name noticed the lack of names for each of the figures, but said nothing. It is probably for the best. Leaves me some plausible deniability, and keeps me from interacting with his pawns.

“Now, how about sys-side?”

Jonas shrugged. “The council, of course, plus the owners of some higher-profile sims, and a few perisystem architects.”

“Alright. I suppose that on my end I don’t have anyone other than the council,” she lied. “And all of my various selves, of course.”

“Right, you have Debarre in your pocket, and Zeke likes you plenty.”

He kept throwing her all these little comments that seemed to tempt her to respond emotionally. Was he testing her? Was he watching to see just how much power he had over her?

Not the best tactic for someone who taught theatre to high-schoolers.

“I think we’ve got the council mostly locked down when it comes to the idea of independence,” she said, setting down her stick.

“And your clade?”

“I have plans for them. Nothing that will get me in trouble with the council, I think.”

“Will you tell me some of those plans?”

She smiled. “Why not, we are working together, after all. They can use our background in theatre to work the propaganda angle.”

It was only a portion of the truth, but she also suspected that Jonas knew this. He accepted it easily enough.

“I’ll send Ir to coordinate with you, so that we don’t step on each other’s toes. That’s what he’s been working on.”

“Did you not say he looked nothing like you? You certainly have the face for a propagandist.”

Jonas laughed. “He arguably looks better. Just different. On that note, will you have your, uh…human self do the propagandizing?”

She waved the question away. “I will work it out. For now, do you have any more news on Yared and his handler?”

“Not too much more. Demma has been heard to mention the System as a country, but so far hasn’t mentioned the word secession. Yared’s latest post is along similar lines as his last. Fluffy, if you’ll forgive the metaphor. The little bit of us teasing each other went over well, and there were a few comments elsewhere on the ‘net that others caught talking about the fact that at least the System still seemed to have fun in it.”

“Any other comments about secession that you have seen?”

He shook his head. “Same little blips from some of the crazier people. More of them, perhaps, but it hasn’t bubbled up too far. There’s a bit more chatter about the legal status of the System independent of other nations, but the S-word hasn’t come up yet. You heard any here sys-side?”

“Not except between us,” she lied.

Jonas needn’t know all of her plans, nor that the propaganda work had already begun. Nor, for that matter, that she was still in contact with Dr. Carter Ramirez, phys-side, who still had reputation of her own, her own knight in the British Isles. After all, if he was going to continue to maintain some of his leverage of the situation, oughtn’t she do the same?

“Alright, well.” Jonas frisbeed his plate into a trash can by the buffet tables. “I guess we’re in a holding pattern on that front until the news breaks elsewhere. Until then, keep kissing babies and shaking hands. Or shaking babies and kissing hands. Or whatever it is that not-a-politicians do.”

Before she could respond, he winked to her and blipped out of existence, likely back to his home sim.

True Name remained a while in the sim, falling back into the habit of planning and rumination, memorizing the pieces and their locations that Jonas had pushed onto the board, and thinking about all of the lies she had told today.