True Name — 2124

The next time the Council of Eight met was nearly two weeks after True Name’s discussion with Praiseworthy, thanks to a small, artificial delay suggested by the other skunk in order to see how well she could manage buttering up those who needed buttering up, meet with Ir Jonas, and let True Name get used to her new form, her new personality.

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.”

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.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t work it in bit by bit, but it’ll go over well.”

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.

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.

“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.”

One of the Russians, in a rare sign of outward emotion, grinned broadly. “I thought you of all people would enjoy, Jonas.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it’s not exactly subtle.”

“We’ll just say that we’re in the middle of a spy reenactment.”

Debarre laughed. “Well, I’m for it. All we’re missing is the ducks and a bag of breadcrumbs to feed them.”

“This can be arranged,” another of the S-R Bloc trio said.

“Another time, perhaps. We can play out the full scene.”

“Maybe we can walk and talk for once.” True Name gestured down the trail, palm up and hand relaxed as Praiseworthy had instructed — you do not want to seem stiff, but rather like you are suggesting that you would like to get on with something that was already their idea in the first place.

It worked well, as the whole council turned on cue and began to walk slowly down the trail. Jonas caught her eye and gave her a wink while the cone of silence settled into place and the meeting began.

“What news on the markets?”

“Nothing particularly new there. We’re still tuning the cost of sims, but the model for forking seems to be working well. We got the chance to test it during a recent hardware upgrade.”

“How about sensorium messages?”

“Proposal was accepted, and there’s an alpha in place. Want to try?”

“Sure, why n– Holy shit! Please don’t do that again.”

And on and on.

They’d made it about halfway around the pond before the discussion turned to True Name and Jonas.

“Glad to hear the launch is a go. I’m curious to see if there will be any interruptions in service meanwhile.”

Jonas shook his head, “Should be smooth sailing. Worst case, we shut down for a few minutes or hours, and then come back online, in which case we won’t even notice a thing in here.”

“And the bill sounds like it’s going well, too,” Debarre said. “I’m actually surprised that it isn’t a foregone conclusion, too. From what I’ve been hearing, there’s essentially total agreement on the DDR, and most of the governments seem on-board now, too.”

It was True Name’s turn to nod, and she slid through the sentence smoothly, letting the topic flow into the conversation as gently as Ir Jonas and Praiseworthy had suggested. She just needed to trust that the work had been done, trust in her own abilities. “Yes, it has almost unanimously been accepted, and all we are really waiting on right now is for them to decide whether or not we can be trusted to govern ourselves.”

The reaction was precisely what she had hoped: almost nothing at all. There were some nodding of heads, and user11824 just shrugged, as he ususally did.

Excellent, it is already in their minds, she thought. Just need to keep going.

Aloud, she said, “We got lucky with our DDR junkie friend, actually. It looks like he has been tapped to help draft the secession amendment that will be added to the bill, though I do not predict any trouble with that passing, either.”

Zeke rumbled with a laugh. “They’re actually calling it ‘secession’ now? How delightful.”

True Name grinned, watching Jonas laugh along with the bundle of rags. I must find a way to thank Praiseworthy. That could not have gone better.

“Hey, if it gets us what we need, then they can call it what they want,” Jonas said. “We can govern ourselves, they can govern themselves, and then all these rights arguments become a moot point. The only sticking point seems to be some portions of the S-R Bloc holding onto the idea of dual citizenship.”

The trio nodded in unison. “We will be working on that.”

“Hell,” True Name mused. “We could probably even make a spectacle out of it. If it is to become something important to the entirety of the System, might as well make it a holiday.”

“We can even get out the fireworks!” Debarre laughed, the weasel bouncing ahead a few steps to turn and walk backwards in front of the rest of the group. “No need to worry about wildfires or anything.”

True Name laughed. “When was the last time you even saw fireworks?”

“Oh, I’ve never seen them. You were lucky, you had a big fuck-off lake you could launch them off of. It was just farms and orchards around us, so they were illegal.”

The skunk smiled inwardly. That the topic of secession had been accepted at face value and slid so easily into joking and chatter was the best she could have hoped for. Even Jonas looked happy.

After to-do items had been handed out and the meeting wound down, Jonas waved to the group and disappeared from the sim. That left True Name five minutes to walk and talk with the others before she would meet up with him, so she spent a few just walking alongside Debarre, talking about the fireworks that she’d watched with their mutual friend during high school, the author of the ode from which she drew her name.

Then she waved her goodbyes as well, and stepped from the spy-park sim to a cafe, the very same one that Michelle/Sasha had visited before she had forked that first time.

“Mocha, right?” Jonas said, handing her a drink and leading her out to a rickety table on the sidewalk, already ensconced in another silent bubble.

“Thank you, yes. Perhaps champagne would be better.”

He laughed and fell into the chair opposite her, a motion that somehow managed to ride the border between ungainly and endearing. “We’ll get stinking drunk when the bill passes, don’t worry. We’ll get all of you and all of me together and bust out the champagne, cocaine, and condoms.”

“Do not even start,” she said, laughing. “I do not sleep with slimy politicians.”

“You know, you’re going to have to drop that act at some point. You have a speech writer, a styling team, a propagandist–“

“They are all the same instance.”

“–and a team of analysts working on both the sys-side and phys-side angles. You, my dear, are one hundred percent a politician now.”

“Alright, fine. Just do not tell anyone, okay?”

“Lips are sealed.”

She sipped at her mocha and leaned back in the chair, looking out onto the street, people both real and imaginary milling along the sidewalks. “I was thinking today that we may actually be the only politicians on the council.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, Debarre is a friend. A smart one, but I think he mostly got the position by virtue of being associated with me and the lost. The S-R Bloc three are spooks who won’t even tell us their names. Zeke is a true-believer; good at what he does but without the faintest thought for how it goes over. user11824 is the opposite. He wears his anonymity like a brand, but does not actually do much.”

“And then there’s us,” Jonas said, nodding. “The ex-WF rep and whatever the hell you are.”

“I am just me.” True Name mused. “I do not know what that is, precisely, but I am just me. I am no longer Michelle, not by a long shot. I maintain none of her meekness and very little of her surplus of empathy. I have lost who she was to become myself.”

Jonas nodded. “For the better, I’d say.”

“Do you think she was not a good council member?”

“Oh, she was fine. Good ideas. Smart. What she lacked was direction, which you make up in spades.”

“I am happy to hear that. Truly.” True Name raised her paper coffee cup in a toast to him. “There are some within the clade who have done the opposite, I am told. Praiseworthy has talked to them all, which is very her. Memory Is A Mirror Of Hammered Silver has hardly left Michelle’s sim in weeks. She wound up with all of the empathy that I left behind.”

Jonas shrugged. “At least someone’s keeping Michelle company.”

True Name said nothing, simply returning to watching the movement of the shoppers.

“What’s next on your list, fuzzy?”

“If you call me ‘fuzzy’ again, I will dump this coffee over your head and rub it into your perfect fucking hair.”

He laughed.

“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.”