“If you had to boil down this year into a sales pitch, what would it be?”
I laughed and bump my shoulder against Hanne’s. “A sales pitch?”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning briefly against me as we walk. “I’m in the market for a new year. Sell me the 2399 model. I’ve got a wide variety to choose from, so tell me why you decided to live through this one.”
“You’re a nerd. You realize that, right?”
“Tell me why I should be a nerd in the year 275. Next year we can decide on 276.“
I scuffed my heel against the pavement of the street. New Year’s Eve, and everyone was still inside. Bars: full. Restaurants: packed. There were a few scattered couples or groups around, but they were all walking with purpose. Champagne called. Canapes. Crudites.
And there we were, Reed and Hanne, arm in arm, strolling leisurely down the street, heedless of the passersby, to celebrate the last day of 2399, systime 275+365. Many, still lingering on the calendar still used phys-side, were doubtlessly partying extra-hard to celebrate the turn of a century.
“If you’re looking for the utmost in luxury, then it’s really hard to go wrong with 2399. The ride was just about as smooth as could be.”
“How about comfort?”
“Oh, very comfortable. Cushy, even,” I said, poking myself in the belly.
Hanne laughed. “Cute. How about the exterior?”
“No clue. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had any reason to pay attention to the world outside. I imagine it looks just as confusing as it anyways has.”
“Well, okay, fair enough. You’ve been here longer than I have.”
“I keep forgetting you’re younger than me.”
She nodded. “Robbing the cradle, you are.”
“You’re 83.”
“Barely legal.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Whatever.”
“How about, uh… Features? Amenities?”
“Well, it’s got us in it, doesn’t it?”
She snorted and shoved me away from her. “Now who’s the nerd? Gross.”
I stumbled to the side, laughing. Our own champagne from earlier added a pleasant freedom of movement I only ever notice at two drinks. Any more and I become too loose and have a hard time staying upright. Any less and I don’t notice that any freedom was lacking.
“Is that so bad?” I asked. “Alternatively: am I not allowed to be a bit maudlin? It’s fucking New Year’s, Hanne.”
“‘Maudlin’? Is that even the right word?”
“What? Uh…” I hunted down a dictionary on the exchange, prowled through it. “Oh. Mawkish, that’s the one. Or saccharine, maybe? I don’t know. Maudlin still kind of works, doesn’t it?”
She tilted her head at me.
“”Extremely sentimental,” it says. Pretty sure that fits.”
Hanne rolled her eyes, grinning. “Okay, yeah, that fits you to a tee.”
We walked in silence for a few minutes. I tallied the occupants of the various restaurants along the way, making note of the busiest to check out on some less-busy night. Good date spots, perhaps.
“What was it like when you uploaded?”
“You mean phys-side?”
Hanne nodded. “What was Earth like? What was your life like?”
I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. The Western Fed was swinging conservative again, it was hot as hell all the time, most places were starting to subsidize uploading despite an already declining population. I guess that makes it sound terrible, and maybe it would have gotten worse, but I wasn’t around to see it. We were doing alright, so maybe I was kind of sheltered.”
“I hear you on the hot as hell part. We couldn’t afford moving south when it got too bad, so we moved up into the mountains. It helped a little bit, at least.”
“When was that?”
“2320 something. I don’t remember. I think I was under ten, at least.”
I nodded. “I guess that’s what I mean by sheltered. We were already up in Newfoundland. Summers sucked, winters sucked, but it was alright between them.”
“Autumn or spring?”
“Huh?”
“Pick one, dummy,” she said, laughing.
“Oh, autumn, for sure. Autumn bitch all the way.”
“I knew it.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m nothing if not myself.”
“So why’d you upload?”
“You know that already.”
Hanne shook her head. “You said to transition, sure, but didn’t you already do that back phys-side?”
I stayed silent, picking apart my thoughts on the matter. “I– Marsh got sick of being trans. They wanted to just be a man, not a trans man.”
“You’re a trans man, though.”
“Sure, but that’s not what they wanted at the time. They started to miss it by the time they forked.”
“Why?”
I laughed. “So many questions tonight.”
She grinned, shrugged.
“Well, I think half of it was that there was just too much pressure at the time. Like I said, the WF was swinging conservative, so there was this push to assimilate, and we internalized that pretty hard. We felt pushed to just shut up and be a man, just disappear, and always felt that we fell short despite all we did to try, but on Lagrange, we could do that right off the bat.”
“So they went back to being trans–“
I shook my head, cutting her off. “They’ve given up on gender. I became the way they experienced that again.”
“Sorry, Reed.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said, feeling a rush of warmth to my cheeks. “Didn’t mean to get too pushy. It’s still a little tender, I guess.”
The shadow of her shoulders relaxed again in the dark of the night. “Even after so long?”
“Yeah. Like I said, we internalized it pretty hard, even as they tried to diversify later on. I headed back trans, Lily headed back feminine, and Cress embodies the negation.”
“Is that why you forked, too?”
I grinned. “I forked for fun. Even if it’s still a tender spot, I think I’m still way more relaxed than they are. There may be a bit of that in Tule, I guess. He’s still pretty happy being a guy — he’s the only one out of all of us, come to think of it. Rush is as ve is of ver own choice, though.”
Hanne looped her arm through mine. “Well, I still like you as you are.”
“What, trans?”
“No, a huge nerd.”
“Of course.” I bumped my shoulder to hers. “Why’d you upload, then?”
“The weather. The money. All the same stuff the government told us. Same as most people, I think. I internalized that as much as Marsh did the whole gender thing.”
“Was the WF still on its conservative swing?”
“The Republic of Argentina wasn’t part of the Western Federation.”
“Oh, right. I guess I knew that.”
She shrugged. “Sure. But either way, they were somewhere in the middle, maybe. There was this big push from the liberal side on the climate, and this big push on the conservative side on the financial side. They said they could cut costs on services if there were fewer of us. Dad was with them, mom was with the libs. It was one of the few things they could agree on. They said they’d miss me, but they weren’t exactly sad when I went the Ansible.”
“‘Went the Ansible’? Is that what you called it?”
“‘Uploading’ sounds so sterile,” she said, nodding. “‘Went the Ansible’ just made it sound like moving away from home.”
“Well, I’m glad you went the Ansible, then.”
“Sap.”
I laughed. “Got it in one.”