Ioan Bălan — 2350

Ioan wasn’t sure what ey was expecting, stepping back home. Certainly all of the instances of May had quit as soon as they’d left, and hopefully that meant that there wouldn’t be any more reputation-analyst-cum-assassins lingering around. All ey could hope is that ey wouldn’t find any core dumps, just in case one of them had somehow killed one of her forks. It was vanishingly unlikely, given that the virus embedded in those symbolic objects — the syringes and knives and who knows what else — had to be tailored to whoever the target was.

Unless they’re after the whole stanza or the whole clade, ey thought, lingering in the entryway, straining to hear any sounds coming from deeper within the house. The entryway took the form of a short hallway that led into a large, rectangular room comprising a den, dining room, and kitchen, and at least the space directly ahead of em was clear.

This is stupid, ey thought. I should just clear the whole place of everyone and completely reset the ACLs.

Curiosity won out, though, and ey set up a cone of silence above emself, set the visual ACLs secure, and then crept into the den. Ey’d be utterly silent and, as far as ey could tell, simply a blurry shape within a blurry patch of the room, though ey’d never tried the new features here at home.

Ey just had to hope that was enough.

Peeking around the corner revealed an empty den, though the clear evidence of a struggle remained: pillows and couch cushions were tossed about, a glass of juice had been knocked over on the table, and most of May’s notes had been scattered in a crazed ring around her desk.

The kitchen and dining area were also empty. Other than the chairs around the dining table knocked askew, there was no damage.

The bedroom was similarly empty, bed still neatly made and a few of May’s better origami creations untouched on the windowsill.

It wasn’t until ey made eir way out onto the balcony to check the back yard that ey found anyone.

A tall, sandy-haired man sat in one of eir Adirondack chairs, cheek rested on his fist as he stared dozily out into the yard. It had been nearly twenty-five years since ey’d interviewed Jonas, and ey hadn’t seen him at all in the interim, but nothing seemed to have changed about him. He was still polished to a gleam, every aspect of him still oozing confidence, still, as both May and True name had described him, perilously handsome.

Ey dropped the cone warily.

“Long time no see, Ioan.” He grinned, nodding out to the yard. “Lovely place you’ve got. So few people keep those good, full-bore winters anymore, you know?”

Ioan lifted eir hand to bounce him from the sim.

Jonas lifted his hands, palms up. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m just here to talk. Mr. Qián left after you and your partner did. Some dramatic stuff all went down all at once.”

“Jonas,” ey said, standing well back from him. “What are you doing here?”

“Just waiting on you, mostly. I wanted to check and make sure you and May Then My Name were alright.”

“Check…” Ey shook eir head. “Why would you care about our well-being? You just sent an assassin to our house.”

“Only to tidy up loose ends,” he said, leaning back in the chair again and using the well-shined toe of his shoe to knock a bit of snow off the railing of the balcony. “I trust you’ve stashed your skunks away somewhere safe?”

“‘My skunks’?” All of the stress of the last half hour that ey’d been holding back around May, all that had been obscured by eir need to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, all of it came crashing down on em at once. “‘My skunks’?” ey shouted. “Jonas, what the fuck? You sent a fucking assassin after True Name, sent him over to our house so he could hound May. What the hell are you even talking about? Of course I’m going to keep my fucking partner and friend safe if you’re going to try killing them! Fucking…‘my skunks’. Good Lord.”

Once ey’d finished and was left panting, Jonas sat up in the chair and grinned widely, clapping his hands. “Mx. Ioan Bălan, such language! I didn’t know you had it in you! Bravo.”

“Fuck you too.”

That grin lingered as Jonas gave a hint of a bow. “Very well, Ioan. To your concerns, the bit with May Then My Name was unintentional. Our plan kicked off early and one of True Name said that she was with you. While I was pretty sure that meant your little coffee shop, I figured I’d stop by just to make sure. Guōweī got a little excited when he saw May Then My Name, thinking it might be his target. She’s quite good at fighting, your girl. You have my most abject apologies. We should’ve just waited.”

“And True Name?”

“Ah yes your…ah, friend, was it? Your friend and I had a meeting this afternoon where I was hoping to deal with all of that quietly and efficiently. Ah well, can’t win ’em all, can you?” He picked at his fingernails, looking the very picture of boredom. “106 out of 109 isn’t too bad, is it? Two merged down before I could get to them, so I guess that leaves just the one. Changes things a bit, doesn’t it? On to plan B.”

“Plan A being to kill one of the most well-known members of one of the most well-known clades on all three Systems?”

“Yep!”

Ioan gaped at him. “‘Yep’? Just…yep?”

Jonas laughed. “That was the easiest one out of the bunch, I’ll admit. I’ve got all the way through plan M, though, so don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”

“Fine. Enlighten me. What’s plan B?”

“Well, it starts here,” he said, nodding toward em. “Where I bring you on as an amanuensis one last time while True Name and I hash things out. Now that she knows, I can’t exactly do away with her. She’s almost certainly told some of her friends by now, so that changes the game.”

“And you need me to sit and listen to you prattle on at her?”

“Yep, basically. I need you to witness and write about what happens and leave the rest of it to the grown-ups.”

Ey scoffed.

“Sometimes mommies and daddies fight, Ioan,” Jonas said, then winked. “So. You’re on as amanuensis. Go and tell True Name to ping when she’s ready and we’ll have our meeting. Oh! And bring May Then My Name and End Waking with, if you can, yeah? The whole stanza will be there.”

“Why on Earth would I–”

“And no assassins, promise. I only mixed up a batch for True Name, no one else. No one’s going to die, we’re just going to have a talk and hash out some new boundaries, and you’re going to watch and write it up at the end.”

“And why should I believe you on that?”

He shrugged. “You don’t have to, but I am telling the truth, Ioan. If you and True Name don’t show at the very least, you’d better plan on not leaving home or wherever you’re staying ever again. Just because I didn’t mix up some syringes for you doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“That’s pretty dramatic.”

“I don’t have the training your pretty little skunks have,” he shot back. There was something vaguely feverish about him, running a little too hot. “Just try and get everyone together and we can get this over with. There’s no huge rush. Sometime within the year, okay?”

“Why?” Ey shook eir head. “Why do you need to talk with her and why do you need an amanuensis? You have to give me something, here.”

“No, Ioan, I don’t,” he said. “Just tell True Name that I’m waiting. You can ask her all the questions you want.”

“Alright, fine,” ey growled. “Anything else?”

“Nope! That’s it for me. You can go back to your hidey-hole and get all smoochy with–”

Ioan completed the gesture ey’d suppressed since the beginning, bouncing Jonas from the sim. Ey held back the urge to scream out into the yard just as True Name had done earlier at the lake.

Ey sent May a quick I’m-okay ping, then started riffling through the perisystem architecture for information on how to completely sweep a sim. There was nothing in there ey could find about checking who was swept, but it was still possible to sweep everyone who didn’t currently have their home set to the current sim, and to receive explicit confirmation that this had been completed and how many instances it affected.

Focusing on the set of steps required, ey triggered the sweep, then checked the log that it had left, eyes-only, for em in the architecture.

Seventeen swept.

“Să-mi fut una,” ey mumbled. Ey’d checked the whole of the inside of the house, and could see no footsteps out in the snow, so unless everyone was hiding under the balcony or up on the roof, ey’d clearly missed at least some of them inside.

Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about it, though.

Ey spent the next five minutes locking down and fine-tuning the ACLs for the house. By the time it was done, the house would only let em and May in as owners along with anyone they intentionally brought with them by hand. It was also now marked as invisible to all but a short list of allowed individuals. Debarre, End Waking, True Name, A Finger Pointing, Douglas, and a handful of others ey could think of who might conceivably want to know when they were home.

At last, ey stepped away from home and back to Arrowhead Lake.

May was sitting on the shore of the lake, knees up to her chest with her arms hugged around them and chin rested atop. Ey rarely saw her sit that way with the pressure it put on the base of her tail, but when the skunk got truly lost in thought — or truly upset — she’d fall back on old habits at the expense of her body.

Ey walked over to sit down beside her, sliding an arm around her waist. “That’s all done.”

The skunk nodded. “Thank you, my dear.”

She’d clearly been crying, given the tear-streaks on her cheeks and the hoarseness in her voice. Ey tightened eir arm around her and kissed at the side of her muzzle. “I’m sorry, May.”

“It is not on you, Ioan,” she said, voice suddenly tight. “All three of us can be sorry about the situation, but you are the least to blame of all of us.”

Ey couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t just make her feel worse, so ey just helped her scoot closer and lean more heavily against em to take the pressure off her tail.

“True Name just got up,” ey said after a few minutes. “I’ll have some stuff to say when she’s back. Jonas was at the house.”

May winced and nodded, scrubbing her paws at her face to wipe away a few fresh tears. “Okay.”

“And I’m sorry to add on more stress, but I told you I’d tell you if I swept anyone while I was there, and the report says I swept seventeen instances.”

“Seventeen?!” The skunk groaned into her paws as she rubbed at her face again. “They have been busy.”

“Who was it? The report didn’t tell me.”

“Bugs,” she said sourly. “Little spies. People who fork to be small enough to hide on top of cabinets or behind pillows. Spy cameras that can think and act.”

Ey blanched. “From Jonas?”

“Yes, and probably some from the clade. Some from the first stanza hired by him or True Name however long ago.”

“And they just listen and watch?”

“Creepy, is it not? I probably should have been more proactive about when I first moved in, but I did not think either of us interesting enough.”

“Very creepy,” ey muttered. All of their talks, all of their discussions and jokes and arguments, all of their pleasant silences and moments of intimacy, all being watched. “What a nightmare.”

She nodded. “I am sorry, my dear. If it is of any consolation, they may not have been there the entire time, and I assure you that we really are quite boring. We have only had a few conversations of note over the last twenty-seven years, and the rest must have been excruciating to sit through.”

“Or incredibly awkward.”

The skunk gave em a quizzical look, then laughed. “Gross, Ioan.”

“Not me! Them!”

“Yes, yes. I agree, awkward. But here comes True Name, no need to be more awkward than we already are.”

They stood up and brushed off their pants as the skunk came trudging around the last bend in the trail, looking utterly exhausted.

“Thank you for giving me the space,” she said, bowing. “And my apologies for the trouble of today.”

“It’s not–” Ey caught emself up short and shook eir head. “Well, are you okay?”

The skunk shook her head. “I am not, no. I am very nearly on the edge of collapse. I feel like I could either sleep for three days straight or cry for three days straight. Both, if it were possible.”

May took a deep breath, held it for a slow count of three, and very carefully let it out. “I am sorry, True Name.”

True Name stood rigid, jaw working as she clenched her teeth in an effort to maintain control. After several long seconds, she sniffled, opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head and bowed deeply.

Watching nervously, Ioan fiddled with the hem of eir vest. So much had happened in the last hour and a half, and now this exchange between eir partner and her cocladist was enough to start that anxiety rising within em again. With True Name trying her best not to cry openly and May clutching tightly at eir arm, both of them interacting with each other was a different sort of stress than the assassination attempt, but no less intense.

“True Name,” ey said carefully. “There’s no rush, but Jonas was there at the house. We can talk about it later, but I figured I’d give you a heads up.”

The skunk gave up on maintaining her expression and hid her face in her paws, nodding. “Thank you,” she croaked.

Once she’d washed her face and calmed down enough to speak, the three of them set to work deciding what the next steps were. May suggested they stay at the lake for the night, explaining that they’d need time to sort out a living situation for True Name and that she wanted to go over their place with a fine-toothed comb before spending the night there again, anyway.

True Name merely nodded. “Is there a place here that I can stay?” she asked.

May winced and shook her head. “It would be camping. We can make that work for tonight if we can scrounge up some gear, but a long-term solution is not feasible. This is not our sim and we do not have ACLs to build here or remove any unwanted visitors.”

She nodded. “I understand. I will dig–”

“You will stay with us,” May said quickly, as though rushing to get it out before second-guessing herself, a sentiment echoed in her expression.

Both True Name and Ioan stared at her until she wilted. “I am sorry. I know that things have been difficult between us and that a large part of that is on me, but that does not mean that I do not want you safe. If we have a place that we have complete control over from ACLs to building, that is safer than this security-through-obscurity abandoned sim, and our proximity will discourage further attempts on your life.”

“I can mirror the house, I think,” Ioan said, once the shock had worn off. “That’ll get you a bedroom and furnishings.”

The skunk looked as though she was fighting off another wave of tears, but she nodded. “Thank you both. I do not wish to impose, but I greatly appreciate your help in the interim.”

May nodded in turn. After a moment’s silence, she turned to Ioan and said, “My dear, can you see if End Waking can help us out with some camping supplies? I do not trust our place enough to go back and create obvious camping goods.”

“Me?”

“Please.” She sighed. “I do not think I have the wherewithal to do so, myself. I do not want to go and cry in front of someone else. I do not want to feel like I am begging, even if help comes willingly.”

Ey hesitated, nodded, and sent End Waking a sensorium ping requesting a meeting, which was quickly acknowledged. “Alright,” ey said, forking off a new instance. “Back in a few.”

End Waking and Debarre were waiting for em at the new entry point to his sim.

“Hey, sorry for the short notice.”

End Waking bowed. “It is no trouble, Ioan.”

“You taking up camping?” Debarre asked, grinning and leaning in to shake eir hand.

“Uh, no, not quite,” ey said. “There’s been…well. Our sim isn’t guaranteed safe at the moment.”

They both perked up at this.

“Not safe? What does that mean?” Debarre asked.

“I don’t want to get too much into it,” ey said, thoughts racing. “But needless to say, May and I aren’t safe there. Some really dramatic stuff happened and literally no one is happy.”

End Waking rested a paw on Debarre’s shoulder before the weasel could speak again. “Perhaps you can expand on this soon, but for now, what do you need?”

“I will, I promise.” And apparently I need to if you’re to come with, ey added mentally. “We need stuff to camp for the night at Arrowhead. We can’t make anything there, and May’s worried about us going back home to procure anything that might tip folks off.”

The skunk nodded, looked thoughtful for a few seconds, and then waved his paw, bringing into being between them two folding camp cots, two bedrolls, a tent, two bundles of firewood, and some simple food — bread, salami, and cheese.

“I will come help you set up,” he said. “It is all fairly straightforward, but tents require four paws.”

Ioan sighed, nodded. “Thank you, End Waking. We’ll, uh…we’ll need three sets, though.”

He paused in the act of bending down to lift one of the cot-and-bedroll combos. “You will need three?”

“And two tents.”

Apparently unable to hold back any longer, Debarre spoke up. “Ioan, I’m gonna go crazy if you don’t give me at least something, here.”

“As am I,” End Waking said.

“Right. Well, sorry in advance for the stress.” Ey paused to collect eir thoughts. Adrenaline seemed to have burned through much of eir energy reserves. Not yet 14:00 and ey was feeling exhausted. “Jonas tried to assassinate True Name and made her think it was about some ‘reactionary elements’ or something. He got all but her root instance, and that only because we were out for coffee at the time. He and his assassin also paid our home a visit and they were going after May in the confusion, so we’re hiding at Arrowhead for the night.”

Silence. Silence but for the sound of a nearby waterfall and a few far-off birds.

“Well, fuck me,” Debarre said at last, rubbing at his temples. “May Then My Name and True Name are stuck together?”

Ey laughed, surprising even emself. “Yeah. Assassins and politicians and whatever, and the weirdest thing about it is seeing them talking.”

End Waking stood a while in thought, then waved his paw again to create another cot, bedroll, and tent. “I will help you set these up, but I will not speak with her.”

“Are you sure, E.W.?” Debarre frowned down at the gear. “I mean, I guess it’s fine giving them stuff, but I’m not exactly comfortable with you being anywhere near her.”

The skunk nodded. “I need to, my dear. I need to be better to her than she might be to me in this situation.”

Ioan frowned. Ey wasn’t so sure that the True Name of 2350 would be so callous, but now didn’t seem like the right time to argue the point.

“If you say so,” Debarre said sourly. “But I’m staying here.”

After a moment’s concentration, a second End Waking stood beside the first. “I will be staying with you, my dear, do not worry. No need to risk more than a fork.”

Ey bent down to pick up the two bundles of firewood while the new instance of End Waking picked up one of the sets of gear and held out his paw. Ioan took it in eir hand and stepped back to Arrowhead Lake. They dropped off their loads, then returned to pick up the second two bundles and the tents.

End Waking set to work immediately, picking out a flat spot in the trees to set up both tents. Ioan was pleasantly surprised when they turned out to be fairly modern gear — at least, modern to the 2100s — thin nylon with carbon fiber spars and a seal-strip entrance which was kept sheltered by a fold in the fabric. The camp beds were of a strong fabric lashed to carbon fiber frames by some springy cord, providing a reasonable amount of give. The bedrolls turned out to be sleeping bags with foam pillows that expanded quickly when the seal-strip was undone.

Throughout the whole process, May, True Name, and eir down-tree instance sat by the edge of the lake, far off to the side. Ey couldn’t tell if they were simply being silent or if they were talking in a cone of silence, but, other than a brief nod to End Waking from May, they seemed keen on taking the space for themselves.

Once the tents and camp beds were set up and Ioan had been shown where and how to start the fire, End Waking bowed politely and said. “We will talk soon, Ioan, I am sure. Until then, please keep you and yours safe.”

Ey nodded and returned the bow. “Thanks again, End Waking. You’ve been a huge help today, and yes, we’ll be in touch.”

When the skunk had left, ey quit and merged back down to eir root instance.

“Well, that’s us settled for the night, I guess,” ey said. “We’ve got stuff for sandwiches, if you’re hungry.”

Both skunks shook their heads.

“Alright,” ey said. Ey wasn’t either, ey realized. The tail end of eir anxiety just had em jittery, wanting to keep moving. Once ey set that aside, ey realized just how exhausted ey was.

They sat in quiet well into the evening, instead, each of them trying to digest the day in their own way.