The next two days passed in relative peace.
There were a few more meetings with phys-side, usually with just Günay, but sometimes Jakub or another administrator peeked in. They all seemed to be rather cowed by the sys-side administration, such as it was. I chalked this up to the fact — later confirmed by Dry Grass — that there had been other talks beside between the latent Temporary Administrative Council and the System Consortium. Talks which had been far more tense.
Although phys-side remained in control of a few aspects, they had quickly ceded the rest to us once more, including ungating communications between Lagrange and Earth.
None of us knew anyone phys-side. We didn’t have the luxury of communications separated by just over two seconds as opposed to the eight-month round trip to the LVs. We didn’t have AVEC to help us out at all. All of our friends had either uploaded or died without having done so, and none of our family cared enough to talk to their grandson with however many ‘greats’ preceded that relationship.
Hanne, however was in yet a different situation. While her parents had long since died, her siblings had not, though by now they were quite old. Their communications were tearful reconnections, hasty requests for information on just what the fuck had happened.
As for that particular question, we had the chance to learn quite a bit more.
The process of restarting Lagrange included a new wrinkle: every time they restarted, more and more instances seemed to be unrecoverable. Even with the help that the LVs had provided in drastically reducing the number of corrupted instances, each time the System was brought up, the number of truly lost instances seemed to increase. There was a core of about twenty billion that remained unrecoverable no matter what, but the number climbed by tens or hundreds of millions with each restart, with different instances among the remainder, raising fears about future downtime and driving phys-side ideas regarding robustness and splitting the System hardware into separate physical components.
Dry Grass had been particularly affected by this. Her up-tree, In The Wind, seemed to have been instrumental in helping return functionality, and yet had not manged to make it through the last three restarts.
On hearing this news, she disappeared for nearly twelve hours, all of her instances merging back down into one singular self. When she returned, she at least looked more well-rested than she had in days, explaining that she had spent nearly all of that time in bed.
She and I also started spending more time together, with the next two lunches being just the two of us together. While I had memories of learning all about her through Tule, she was keen on learning about me in turn. She wanted to know what my take was on why Marsh had uploaded, explaining that both Cress and Tule had differing thoughts on the matter. She wanted to know why it was that I had slipped back into that transmasculine identity. She wanted to know how it was that Hanne and I had found each other, had fallen in love.
I mostly wanted to know — though I never asked — how it was that I — that part of me from before the merge — was falling so rapidly for her in turn. I turned that question over and over in my head, leaning on it for comfort whenever thoughts of Marsh struggled to overwhelm me.
When at last the group of representative clades met up again, we were joined by yet another Odist, I Cannot Stop Myself From Speaking, a bobcat furry who moved silently on soft-padded paws, whose voice was quiet and yet demanding of attention.
Also joining us on phys-side were Günay and Jakub, along with one of the information security officers, a dour person named en4, who introduced themself as a member of The London Cohort of New Zealots, a conservative collective from whom the Our Brightest Lights Collective had split some decades prior. LCNZ had apparently proven itself to not be conservative enough, and the far more militant OBLC had left to join a coalition of fundamentalist collectives and like-minded individuals in order to orchestrate the Century Attack.
“The LCNZ sternly and unquestionably disavows the action of the OBLC,” they began. “Their actions are truly reprehensible, and despite our generally distant relationship with the System, we harbor no ill-will to any of you, even the Ode and Jonas clades.”
“Even us?” Answers Will Not Help asked, a sneer painted on her face, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Even us? And what is it that we have ever done to you, my dear?”
Their face remained impassive. “We, like the original Zealot Cohorts, hold a rather poor opinion of those named in the Bălans’ An Expanded History of Our World. We acknowledge that it was a sensationalized work, as expressed in the Bălans’ own words in Individuation and Reconciliation, and those of Sasha in her Ode, but it is hard to let go of prejudices.”
Answers Will Not Help scoffed.
“We stand by our earlier statement,” en4 said, offering a hint of a bow from their seat. They were calling in from Earth, so their reactions remained on a delay, which took some getting used to. “We harbor no ill-will, we just do not like the manipulative tactics used by the eighth stanza in particular.”
“We will come back to that,” she replied coldly. “We will have words.”
“So be it.”
“We have spoken with the quarantined instance of the attacker several times,” Jakub said, picking up the conversation smoothly. “They remain alive in this instance of the restart, although in previous restarts, they quit immediately on realizing that the bomb failed to detonate.”
“Why do they remain alive this iteration?”
“We turned off their ability to quit,” Günay said.
“That’s possible?” Harvey asked. “Why the fuck would that even be a thing?”
“Oh, it’s always been possible,” she replied, shrugging. “It’s another one of those privacy concerns, I guess. We moved them to the DMZ used for testing the LVs, the one that turned into Convergence on Castor.”
“That is why I am here,” Speaking said, standing and bowing to the attendees at the table. Not even her clothing rustled, no sound of fabric on fur. “I have been the sys-side representative interviewing them.”
“Yes,” Jakub said. “One representative each: Information Security Officer en4 and Speaking.”
“Can you tell us more about them?” Sedge asked. “I want to know who would even do something like this.”
Speaking nodded, returning to her seat. “Yes. They go by 8-stanza-1, a reference to the Ode from which we take our names. Specifically, it is a reference to The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream, who became Sasha when she was forced away from her role in the sys-side political landscape. A change, I will note, which the OBLC rejects. In fact their whole collective refers to the Ode. This is why they limit their membership to one hundred members.”
“Wild,” Debarre murmured. “Y’all are weird, but that’s way, way weirder.”
“Weird indeed,” Jonas Fa said, staring intently at en4.
They smiled blandly. “Yes, we took inspiration for our naming scheme from your clade.”
“Fucking gross.”
Smile unwavering, en4 said, “We have no comment on that decision at this time.”
“Why do you even work with the System if you hate us so much?”
“Because 2.3 trillion people live on the System,” they said. “That is 2.3 trillion lives. We agree on that, yes?”
Nods around the table.
“2.3 trillion lives, then. 2.3 trillion lives that were taken from us here on Earth. 2.3 trillion minds in almost 40 billion uploads that might have lived full lives here among us phys-side. We resent that they were, and yet our only recourse is — must be — to keep them alive, to ensure that they at least remain among the living in some form or another.” Their gaze drifted to the three present Odists. “We, too, desire nothing but the stability and continuity of the System, just for different reasons. This instance of us is an ISO specifically to live up to our own principles.”
All three of the Odists nodded, expressions varying from serious to vaguely disgusted.
“Regardless of our opinions of each other,” Speaking said, picking up the prior thread. “Interviewing 8-stanza-1 was a frustrating experience. I am told that I was the instance sent to discover their presence, relying on tools developed by my down-tree instance, I Have Sight But Cannot See. I have no memory of this, but it does sound like something that I would do.”
“What about it was frustrating?” Selena asked.
“They are…emotional. Very emotional. Understanding their voice through their sobs or wild laughter was difficult. All the same, they are a very grounded individual. They speak concisely and with no disregulation in their speech.” She shrugged. “They just speak in coherent, well-formed sentences and paragraphs about untrue things. Their every word is part of a lie. Their very existence is built up around lies. They breathe lies out on every breath.”
“They are very tightly integrated,” en4 said. “They all speak thus. This is why they split away from us some decades ago. It was a mutual decision.”
“You kicked them out?” Jonas Ko asked.
They shrugged eloquently.
“Despite these lies,” Speaking continued, “I was able to glean plenty through apophasis and aposiopesis. All I needed to do was assume that every statement was false. ISO en4 confirmed much of this from the LCNZ’s view. They — the OBLC — differ from the LCNZ in the sense that they believe each of those lives is a life lost, rather than a life preserved. They believe that the lives here on the System are, and I quote, “shadows and negations of souls”. They believe that clades are negations and that up-tree instances are shadows.”
“Yes,” en4 said. “They believe that each of these negations negates a life phys-side, and thus the only way they could even bring into balance, much less overcome, the negation offered by the System is to destroy it. They hoped that by destroying you, they would give those who remained phys-side a chance at heaven.”
“You said there were a group of collectives that worked together on this, though, right?” Selena asked.
“Collectives and individuals, yes.”
“Did they all believe this sort of thing?”
They shook their head. “Not at all. Many of them struggled with the effects that the uploading of individuals had on worsening the climate catastrophe.”
“That’s not on us, though.”
“Is it not?” they asked mildly. “For a while, it was quite popular for individuals to upload in order to work on the climate catastrophe, and yet many of them would disappear shortly after doing so, falling into new habits, new friend groups. It is only in past few decades that the pace of climate change was reversed.”
“Yes, but hasn’t much of that changed thanks to the Artemis data dump?” Boiling Maw dos Riãos, another of the furries sitting at the table asked. She was some sort of mustelid, though larger and far more thickly-furred than Debarre. A fisher cat, the System informed me through a whiff of distraction. I pushed it down in an attempt to focus. “Most of that effort took place sys-side as well.”
“I will answer, but after this, we should return to the topic of the Century Attack,” en4 replied. “Many of these collectives — of which the LCNZ is one — believe that this is a side effect of the Artemisians’ convergence, rather than any effort from those who uploaded in order to help. We would say, “Are we to rely on aliens to solve every problem? Ought we not also work ourselves?”“
“That’s not–” Boiling Maw started, anger painting her face. She paused, took a deep breath, and settled back into her seat, sulking. “Right. Moving on.”
Speaking bowed respectfully to the Riã. “Yes, though perhaps there will be time for a separate conversation on this matter at another time. For now, 8-stanza-1 spoke of these negations and shadows and of their reasoning, and while I am left to guess at the negations of their own statements, I am confident of at least their reasoning for attacking Lagrange, thanks to ISO en4’s confirmations. They wished to reopen the gates of heaven to humanity. I also believe that those other collectives and individuals who worked behind the scenes on this attack had their own reasons, and as the investigation continues, both with me working sys-side and Answers Will Not Help coordinating with phys-side, we will learn more and publish the results to the feeds.”
Dry Grass frowned. “Are you sure that that is wise? Does the entirety of Lagrange need to know these reasons?”
“The eighth stanza and Jonas clade have made their decision. I do not care.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is out of my hands. It is outside my bailiwick. That is their role. It is their responsibility to manage spin.” She sat down once more, movements speaking of a barely contained energy. “I am the tool and have served my purpose. It is my job now to mourn my own losses as I may.”
“We’re working on it,” Jonas Ko said soothingly after a moment’s silent acknowledgement. “The goal is to spin it so as to discourage anything like this going forward, not give anyone ideas.”
“That was going to be my next question,” Dry Grass said. “If there are other sympathetic uploads or anyone else phys-side, would it not be dangerous to publish that information?”
“We are on it, my dear,” Answers Will Not Help said, laughing.
“So,” I said after the conversation drifted into silence. “What do we do now?”
“Mourn,” Dry Grass said. “Work and mourn.”