AwDae — 2112

“If I dream, am I no longer myself?”

AwDae did not pace the streets of London. Did not open the drapes to see if the streets were full of people or desolate and empty. Did not listen for the sounds of the city.

Ey did not step from eir flat. Did not, in fact, leave the spot where ey knelt on the floor for more than an hour, for days and days. Did not do anything except stroke Priscilla when she came and walked by eir knees.

“I still have wants and needs,” ey murmured to the cat, who only slow-blinked at em. “If I dream, is that not so?”

The words were automatic. Ey opened eir muzzle and they came forth in a steady cadence.

A memory: RJ and Sasha sitting on the edge of the stage during a break in rehearsals. The play: words of Dickinson. A five minute break. RJ’s tablet not showing the usual stage diagram with mic placement and notes, but a white screen. Sasha laughing as RJ began writing, eyes closed. Automatic writing. Drivel and nonsense. Something to giggle over with best friends.

Eyes closed. Ey could feel the soundscape of the room around em change, and knew that ey must now be kneeling on the stage in school.

“Wait.” Ey shook eir head, tall ears bowing. Ey opened eir eyes and was back in eir flat.

What lives we lead we lead in memory, ey thought, then smiled. My mind should be reeling. I should be feeling overwhelmed and overflowing.

Ah well.

Ey stood once more, rubbing at eir knees and wincing at the pins and needles rushing over eir paws. Could ey will the discomfort away? Perhaps. Could ey even feel discomfort? Could ey dream it?

Perhaps.

Not now.

Ey padded to the kitchen and opened the cupboard in which the tea must be stored, and, yes, pulled out a tea bag, setting it in eir favorite mug. Ey held the kettle beneath the faucet from whence the water should come and, yes, filled the kettle halfway full and set it on the counter once more.

A memory: RJ and Avon. Avon, who had let RJ crash on his couch when ey had first reached London. RJ and Avon at a small cafe. Avon promising an authentic cream tea and then immediately launching into a tirade against authenticity. RJ laughing. Avon watching, hawk-eyed, to see whether RJ would spread eir clotted cream on the scone first, or instead reach for the jam. Avon nodding approvingly at the choice.

The water quickly came to a boil. After pouring it into the mug, AwDae hiked emself up onto the counter by the edge of the sink and let eir tail dangle into it. It would get wet, but that is just what happens with sinks.

“You seem kind of frozen, kind of stuck, in a few ways.”

“I am stuck, yes,” ey informed Priscilla. “I am stuck with will and with memory and with time. As much time as I need.”

The cat purred. AwDae laughed and lifted eir mug. Too hot to drink, but comforting to hold. Ey felt the comfort in memory.

A memory: RJ waking a few days? Weeks? RJ waking some time ago, years and years ago, and groggily making a pot of tea. RJ sipping one mug of tea while watching the traffic. RJ sipping a second mug of tea while making rice. RJ starting a third mug of tea before sitting down at eir rig and getting lost in research. RJ digging and digging and digging through cards, through tables, through numbers and words and data. RJ frowning at a mass of voting records. RJ downing a cold mug of tea.

The tea was cool enough to drink, now, and so AwDae did.

And when ey had half-finished the tea, the fox slid from eir perch on the counter and padded over to eir rig. Frowned. Why bother with such a thing? Instead, in its place should be a small, white room extending past the boundaries of eir flat.

And there was.

And when ey would step into that room, ey would cease to be a fox, but instead become fully immersed in memory, manipulating it with the same ease with which ey manipulated the acoustic space of the theater.

And ey did.

And when ey might think about what memories ey had, ey would find there, whole and uncorrupted, all of the information ey had been prowling through on Cicero’s disappearance. No riddles to solve, no tricks, no mics, no paper. Ey would be able to expand across that sense that passed for sight in a fully immersive sim the entirety of the data.

And ey could.

AwDae dreamt. Dreamt of work. Dreamt the table of Cicero’s DDR votes, dreamt that it rotated in beautiful precision along any axis ey wished. Dreamt of the other cards in the deck, of recorded conversations and notes and last-connected times. Ey dreamt eir way through all of the data packed into the deck of vcards Sasha had given em so very, very long ago.

Ey kept dreaming.

Ey dreamt of the Crown Pub. Dreamt of emself sitting at a booth with Sasha. Dreamt of talking about Cicero with her. Dreamt of how ey had poked eir claw against the surface of the table in the sim, then rubbed at it with a pad, despite the fact that sim would not allow the table to be dented.

Axiom: when any sufficiently large group of furries convene in one place, they will spontaneously generate a bar to hang out at. A bar, a cafe, a park, a plaza.

Thus: in eir dream of so many furries, the table was there, perfect. The table, the booth, the whole pub. Not the noise, not the people, but ey dreamt, in that fully immersive perception-of-everything way, of the entire pub. Of the entire sim. Dreamt of the precise construction of it down to the parametric equations that defined the curves of the vinyl stool cushions. Dreamt of the area behind the bar, unreachable by patrons but behind which puttered the staff AIs’ avs.

It was all there. The entire thing. The entire sim, all the way out to its boundary fence and the subtle magic of the fake street beyond. All cached in eir exo, in eir memory.

Ey dreamt of eir home sim. The simple bed. The simple dresser. The logic behind the commands that let em select items and clothing to equip to emself. The tport pad.

All there.

And ey dreamt of Sasha. Ey dreamt of everything about her. The subtle scent of dandelions and the too-straight stripes that traveled over her muzzle, head, and then down her back. The equations that drove her tail. Her very voice.

“You seem kind of frozen, kind of stuck, in a few ways,” she said.

She was all there. All of her avatar. What ey remembered of their final conversation could be played out from start to finish between skunk and fox in perfect detail. Detail that could not be anything other than perfect. Detail that had to be perfect because eir exo had cached the skunk’s av, just as it had cached eir flat and the Crown Pub.

But she was not all there.

She was not there at all. Her avatar was a hollow shell that AwDae could make parrot her lines. It was a puppet. It was a sensory representation without context. A sign without an object, signifier without the signified.

AwDae was in a hall of mirrors that allowed no one else but emself. She was not there and she could not be there because AwDae was lost, and when one is lost, one is alone in ways more fundamental than could be dreamt of in any solipsist’s philosophy.

What lives we lead we lead in memory, and the end of memory lies beneath the roots.

Ey could not forget, for memory ends at the teeth of death and is wholly inaccessible to the living, because the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.

And ey could not cry thus immersed.