One by one, the other Marshans stepped away from my and Hanne’s sim until it was just the two of us, the fire crackling, the weight of the evening hanging over, between us. We stood in silence for a few long moments before I stumbled back over to the couch and fell heavily into the cushions. I buried my face in my hands and only then let the grief take me.
Hanne sat beside me, got her arm around my back. She rested her head on my shoulder as the wave of emotion overcame me. At first, she asked if I’m alright, then she whispered a few “I’m sure it’ll work out”s and “it’s going to be okay”s before eventually just sitting with me in silence.
“This is really fucking weird,” I said once I was able to speak again. The sound of speech echoed strangely in my head, muffled in that post-cry mess. “I don’t even know who I’m crying for. It’s not like they’re a parent, I came from them, but they aren’t me, either.”
“A bit of both, maybe?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Do you really think they’re gone?”
I shrugged again, stay silent.
Hanne nudged me gently with her shoulder. “Come on, Reed. Let’s get you to bed.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. Not after all that.”
“Still,” she said, leaning over to kiss my cheek. It felt too hot, too intense a sensation, but I felt calmness radiate from that spot all the same. “If nothing else, you can lay down in the dark and give your poor eyes a break. Plus, I need to sleep, at least.”
How could I stand, knowing as I did that the clade had become unmoored? How could I think of sleep when there might be some remnant of Marsh somewhere in the wires? Some ghost of them in the machine that was the System? If this System was a dream, as Dry Grass and the rest of her clade had promised the world, then oughtn’t there be some wisp of them of memory from which deeper archives could be dredged? Even a Marsh from decades back would still be a Marsh worth bringing back.
I sighed, nodded dully, and let her pull me to my feet.
I swayed for a moment, feeling reality shift unsteadily beneath me. Once I straightened up, I followed Hanne off to our bedroom. We’d spent the previous night, as we often did, sleeping in two separate beds — I always got too warm sleeping next to someone — but any grounding force feels welcome now, so, with a gesture, the two beds slid together, merging seamlessly into one.
A hollow feeling bubbled up within me. The two beds merging into one was an image of something now well beyond the Marsh clade. I was thankful I’d already cried myself dry.
The lights dimmed to near darkness and the temperature dropped a few degrees as me and Hanne stripped and settled beneath the covers, her arms snug around me.
“I love you, Reed,” she mumbled against the back of my neck. “I’m sorry I got so stressed before, but I love you. You know that, right?”
I leaned back against her. “I know. I love you too.”
As expected, sleep did not come. Exhaustion pulled at me, exerting its own gravity, but too many emotions crowded it out. Too many emotions and too many thoughts. I spent a few minutes chiding myself — shouldn’t I sleep, if only to be more refreshed for the next day? — before giving in and letting my mind circle around each of those emotions, each of those thoughts.
There was the faintest brush against my sensorium. Vos.
“How’re you two holding up?” I sent.
“Not well.”
“I imagine not.” After a moment, I added, “Do you have any more information?”
The faintest sense of a shake of the head before Vos said, “Nothing. They were here, then they weren’t. There’s no trace. It’s almost as thought they never existed. Pierre fell asleep a bit ago. I think he wore himself out trying to reach them.”
“It’s pretty late.”
“Or early,” Vos mused. “No sleep for you, either?”
“I gave it a go, but have just been laying in the dark.”
“Have you heard from any of the others?”
“Nothing yet,” I sent. “I need a bit of a break from them, anyway.”
“How come?”
“We wind up in feedback loops a little too easily.” I stifled a snort of laughter. Hanne mumbled something incoherent against my neck in her sleep. “It drives Hanne nuts. That’s why she was yelling about me doing it again.”
“Oh, trust me, Marsh winds up in–“ The message stopped abruptly, and I found myself holding my breath, checking the time several times in a row, wary of further jumps. A few seconds later, Vos continued, voice shaky. “They, uh…they wound up in their own feedback loops.”
I buried my face against the pillow, take long, slow breaths, willing myself to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake Hanne. How could I lay there, knowing as I do that Marsh was gone? How could I speak to Vos, knowing that I should be doing something, not crying in bed, accepting a fate that made no sense? Was it just some hopeless part of me that had accepted Marsh’s absence? Oughtn’t I be striving even now to find some way to get them back?
No answers, only questions.
I’m really struggling, I replied, realizing after that it’s been nearly ten minutes of silence since Vos messaged last. I’m laying here in the dark like a fucking idiot instead of doing literally anything to figure this out.
Her reply was gentle. So are we, Reed. Just laying in bed, staring at nothing. I don’t know how to make that…okay in my head, but it’s all I’ve got.
How’s Pierre doing, then?
Not well.
He seemed like it hit him really hard, yeah.
A pause, and then she sent, quieter than before, I don’t want to say this is hitting any one of us harder than the other, but…well, we care for him. That was our dynamic, I mean. He’s young and full of emotions, so we occasionally fall into that parent role. It hit him hard, and so he needs care, but…
But it’s also hitting you hard?
Yeah.
Pass on my love, will you? I send.
The sense of a sniffle from the other end of the message. The sense of a nod.
The message stopped.
I lay in bed, then, thinking about Marsh. Thinking about all that I knew of what they’d become since I was last them, however long ago that was. We’d seen each other a handful of times at this event or that gathering, and we’d talked a few times over messages a few more, but he was always distant, always held at arms length.
It was both our arms, too, I know that. They kept their life separate from mine, just as I kept mine separate from theirs. It was ever our arrangement that all of their forks would live out their own individual lives, merging down as the year ticked over.
They’d laugh whenever it came up, saying, “So I’m greedy. Sue me.”
We’d all laugh, too. It wasn’t really greed, that desire for our memories in a way that we could never get in return. It was just the dynamic that we held to ever since I’d been forked. Of course it was: I was them when I’d been forked. An exact copy that only slowly diverged over the years. It had been my idea as much as theirs.
Hanne rolled away from me and I take that as my chance to at least no longer be laying down. I forked a new instance standing beside the bed and then quit, just in case the motion of me getting out of bed would wake her.
I needed out of the house. Nowhere public — I don’t want to see what others in the System are dealing with right now. There would be time for that later, but for now I needed out and away from everyone.
The sim I wound up in is simple and bucolic. There was a pagoda. There was a field, grass cut — or eaten, I suppose, given the sheep in the distance — short, stretching from stone wall to stone wall. It was day — it didn’t even seem like the owners included a day/night cycle — and foggy. Cool but not cold. Damp but not wet.
There was a bench in the pagoda, at least, so I made my way there, trudging tiredly up the whitewashed wood of the steps to sit on the well-worn seats. Whoever made this place seemed to have put more effort into the pagoda than the field. Fog like that was usually the sign of a border of a sim of limited size, so it was clearly just this single paddock, the grass and sheep and stone walls likely purchases from the exchange.
It was a public sim, but the listing had shown zero occupants. I was lucky it was empty, I guess.
A pang tugs at my chest. Empty of people because they were simply not here? Empty of people because everyone was dealing with the same problem that we were? Or empty of people because those people were gone, too?
The seat of the bench had been worn smooth by who knows how many butts over the years, but I picked at the velvety wood all the same. You’re not alone, Reed, I reminded myself. Hanne’s at home. The rest of the clade is there. Vos and Pierre are there. Dry Grass is there.
I sighed and slouched against the back of the bench. Exhaustion was warring against the drive to do something, and both of those were striving against the need to be alone and away from this whole spectacle. All of those ‘how can I’ questions were clattering up against equal-sized armies of ‘too tired’s and ‘it doesn’t need to happen now’s.
I spent an hour out there, all told. I picked at the bench. I called out to the sheep. I walked circles around the pagoda in the gray day. I bent down, pluck a blade of grass with the intent to…I don’t know, chew on it like I’ve seen in films, but it smelled so strongly of sheep manure that I dropped it instead and headed home to finally lay down beside Hanne and sleep.