[SESSION id=0.23]: End Subroutine
Progression
"How did you do it?" The voice call started with Miss Cloud's frantic voice. I almost giggled at the tone. "It's all over the newscasts, and we just got a memo from Central that you've been granted an extended paid time off for your work." She took a deep breath. "Let me start over. Hello, Lillian."
Jazz rolled her eyes. I had the call on public so we could both hear. My choice, not hers. "Hello, Miss Cloud." I'd been practising my voice every cycle for almost half a supercycle. Even I didn't recognise it when Jazz recorded and played it back.
"Apologies. It seems I've gotten Lillian's partner. Can you put Miss Thorn on the call?" Was she flustered?
"Miss Cloud," I said, not bothering to adjust down for her. "This is Lillian. And so far as how, I think you'll find that a lady never reveals her secrets."
"Oh. Well. That's good. Very nice." She stuttered and stammered for a few cycle ticks. "You sound very different on voice call, Lillian. It's nice."
"Not just on voice call, Rain," Jazz spoke up. "Your ace has been hard at work out here." There was very little risk to Miss Cloud hearing Jazz with me. She knew I was on the trip with her. "From handling the mess with Flower_Princess and Silver_Thorn to rebuilding herself in a much more comfortable existence." Jazz faked a yawn. "So why are we receiving a voice call at ten degrees before light?"
Miss Cloud made an embarrassed noise. "Apologies," she said, "I forgot you were in Three. Time differences. I can let you go if you two just woke up."
"We didn't," I lied, "but I wouldn't mind a bit more time to wake up, Miss Cloud. I haven't had my stimulant brew or layer pastry. Miss Moon promised I could have them at zero degrees this morning for all the hard work I put in." Also a lie, but Jazz just squeezed my thigh and smiled.
"So you won't tell me anything about how you did it?" A last shot at answers from a desperate bureaucrat. I couldn't fault her. "Not even how you found out who she was? Who they were?"
"I believe you'll find a report on your desk in a short while, Rain," Jazz stood and walked toward the kitchen. She was still undressed, and I couldn't help staring. "Once you read that, we'll answer any questions. Good morning, Miss Cloud. We look forward to hearing from you."
After disconnecting the call, I stood and crossed to her, pulling her close. It was strange. We were no longer the Princess or the Thorn. We were just Lillian and Jazz. But there was a weird freedom in that. A terrifying weight had fallen and just barely missed us both.
Flower_Princess and Silver_Thorn had secretly planned a grand collaboration. We'd orchestrated something incredible, so big it was impossible. And then we generated a script that systematically undid all of that work.
It was rare for me to leave any trace of my work, whether as Flower_Princess or as a TERRA operative. But we had to show that we had done the impossible. Made The Source robust against the two most prolific crackers in the modern epoch. And turned their accounts into nothing more than 0x00000000 permissions puppets. We'd found two older women who were about to SIGTERM and pinned it on them.
And then, we waited.
The call came in two cycles later. Congratulations to me. Thanks to Jazz for putting me in a position to do such incredible work. An offer of a bonus. Jazz spoke for me. We wouldn't have to return to [city[0]] for another fifty cycles.
Miss Cloud's call came a rest cycle after that.
Life was suddenly much less complicated, and instead of happiness or peace, I felt heavy. Like my heart wanted to be a bit too close to the ground. I held onto that for a few cycles, and when I mentioned it to Jazz, she laughed at me.
"Lillian. How long have you been on your meds?" That same question. Over and over. "And what do you know about the timeline of those meds?"
"About eighteen rest cycles." I counted. "In fact, I think it's eighteen in a few cycles. Why?"
She dragged me to the washroom and stood me in front of the mirror. "Take off your blouse."
"What?" I complied, but I still had to ask. I looked at her, but she turned my face to the mirror. "What am I looking at, Jazz?"
Her hands gently turned my body to the side, then my head back to the mirror. That's when I saw it. Not much. Just enough to be noticeable. Development. Visible change. My body was different.
"That doesn't change the fact that I feel strangely guilty about everything." I bounced. My body bounced with the motion. I giggled. "Okay. It helps. A little. But it's not what I meant, Jazz."
"Fair enough." She took a deep breath, then wrapped her arms around me. "You've spent most of your life trying to do something good. Something fantastic. And Flower_Princess was your key to that when we were seventeen and eighteen." Our bodies were warm. I felt her heart beating. "You've held onto so much for so long. And now you're letting it go. Becoming a digital ghost for your bigger goals. You're expected to feel something."
"Do you feel like that too?"
"No," she made a playful sound. "I feel hungry. And I feel proud of my wife. And proud of myself."
"We're not married yet."
"Close enough." She took my hand and slipped a ring onto it. Silver. It had two stones set in it. One matched her eyes. One matched mine. She put her own hand in front of me. A matching ring. "If you want it. Anyway."
"Of course." I turned around in her embrace so our noses touched. "I assume you've already gotten the paperwork, filled it out, and are waiting on my signature."
"For once, Lillian, no." Her expression was soft, caring, kind. "I wanted us to do this one together."
Faltering
Jazz and I kept working on the tdif problem. My body kept developing. And we stayed away from [city[0]] for the remainder of our planned time away. Our lives were quiet as we worked actively together. My body was starting to feel like home, and I ran into a problem.
"I've figured it out, Jazz." She looked at me hopefully, but immediately deflated when I wasn't smiling. "Not that, no. I figured out why I feel so hesitant. So guilty."
"Do go on, but keep working as you speak." She kissed my cheek and walked out of the room. "And speak loudly. I'd like to hear you."
"Why are we trying to access rose, Jazz?" I wasn't expecting an answer. I didn't get one. "For my part, it's largely to do with being cross-coded. That's why I got into computing. It's why I was happy to crack with you when we were younger.
"And generally, I've just really wanted to fix what's wrong with me." She made a sound of acknowledgement. "The Source is this big ugly complicated mess. And when people try to 'fix' things, they often wind up breaking them worse." Another acknowledgement. A familiar smell worked its way to me. I tried to ignore it. "But for the last twenty cycles or so I haven't felt so lost, so broken, so messed up."
I got up from my workstation and followed the smell as it started overpowering my resistance.
"The way your hands feel on my skin. The way our lips feel together. The gentle sensitivity of every part of me." I found her in the kitchen, standing over two cups. Both lipstick stained. Not my mother's but ours. "My life is getting better, Jazz. To a point that it feels stupidly risky to do what we're doing."
My hands found her waist. My chin settled on her shoulder. She was staring at the steam coming off of the cups.
"Are you saying you want to give up, Lillian?" Something wet fell on my hand. "Are you saying we're not going to go all the way?"
I turned her around with some effort. I really was losing my strength. Her eyes were red. The tears were fighting against her. "I'm saying I'm worried about what happens if we do. Our whole philosophy is that we can't hurt anyone, right? What if we do this, and it hurts people in ways we couldn't imagine?"
"Lillian, I'm going to be as nice as possible as I say these words." She leaned against the kitchen counter and pulled me close. "I couldn't give the tiniest bit of concern for anyone else. I care about you. If we do this and the rest of [world] burns, but you are okay, then it was worth it."
"That's horrible, Jazz." I let myself think about it for a few cycle ticks. "But if I'm honest with myself, that feeling is mutual. And I think that's what scares me most. The fact that I don't care if we break everything. I just want you to be safe and happy."
"I'm flatterred, Lillian." Her tears weren't stopping, despite her half smile. "But if I'm honest, I'd still be here, still doing this, even if I'd never met you. My life was a constant reminder of how wrong everything is.
"My parents. Both cross-coded. My brother-in-law, cross-coded. My best friends before education, cross-coded. I've been surrounded by you and people like you since I was born. And I hate it. I want to fix [world] or SIGKILL myself trying." Her expression turned to something like anger. "But that's just the simple thing. I may not be cross-coded. But I'm not much different than you or any of them.
"From the first thing I remember, all I've wanted is to fix [world]." She pulled me tight. "Finding you just gave me a focus. A thing to remember when it got hard. I would rather delete The Source than see you suffer for a cycle tick. I would rather not exist than have the pain we're all stuck with.
"So if you give up all of this, Lillian," she glared, "trust, I'll still keep going. But I'll be doing it without the safeguards you insist on."
"Why is it that I find that compelling? Not in a 'you're forcing my hand' kind of way, but in a 'your passion inspires me' way." I smiled. "How about this. Until we get into rose, there's plenty of time. So we can revisit this. But I'm pretty sure that you'll stay passionate. I'm pretty sure that passion will keep pushing me forward."
"You're a pain, Lillian. And you're lucky we're married, or else I'd give up on you." She pulled me in as closely as possible. A desperate hold against the forces that might try to tear us apart.
"No. No you wouldn't."
"Correct."
Missing Petals
╭─phyllo@Ω in ~ via > 0.0.b
╰─ω userdbctl --limit 7 --first -1 --essential | ~/usetable.sh -f ~/users
| id | user | perms | age | giv | fam | pro |
| -- | ----------- | -------- | ---------------- | --- | --- | --------- |
| -1 | phyllo | 7F7F7F7F | 0FA7B4FFCB39AC17 | | | Jazz.Moon |
| 0 | rose | FFFFFFFF | 0FA7B4FFCE98AC8A | | | |
| 3 | elia.gideon | FF7F7F7F | 0FA7B4FFAB39AC17 | | | lynae |
| 4 | nihil.nalia | 7FFF7F7F | 0FA7B4FFAB39AC17 | | | aeluin |
| 5 | ayuna.nara | 7F7FFF7F | 0FA7B4FFAB39AC17 | | | linna |
| 6 | aria.rialta | 7F7F7FFF | 0FA7B4FFAB39AC17 | | | sini |I was missing something. It was right there, in the missing lines.
"Proposition for you, Mrs. Thorn," I said to Jazz. She was sitting next to me but working on her own things. "Assume for a moment that you were not the original creator of phyllo. Assume further that the reason for the impossible userId is that phyllo is some kind of failsafe that was deleted."
"That's a lot of assumptions, Mrs. Thorn," Jazz teased. "If those things are true, that doesn't get us anywhere."
"But it does, Jazz," I offered, pointing to the space between rose and elia.gideon. "Who goes in this space right here? Rose can't have been the only one up here with ridiculous permissions."
"And what? Having user creation permissions is a fluke? And I just stumbled into the name of some divine-level account?" She wasn't mad or impatient. She was genuinely curious. "You never asked how I stumbled into phyllo."
"Random name from our shared history, I assume." She laughed at that. I couldn't name it if I tried. I'd done everything I could to completely forget so much. Some of it forgot itself. "One I'm not willing to remember."
"Not entirely random." She smiled gently. "And you actually wouldn't remember it even if you hadn't stupidly removed so much of your past." Her hand moved to a small box on her desk. "A private joke between someone else and me."
"Any other names like that tumbling around in your history," I gestured somewhat grandly, "with me or otherwise?"
"Perhaps," she smiled again. "Now. Go take a break. You've been staring at that list without doing anything for the last five degrees."
"Fine."
I got up and walked to the next room. I needed to clear my head and consider things from another angle. Perhaps the secret wasn't in a name, but in a particular set of words. Or more interestingly in a particular region of The Source. Perhaps the answer was sitting right in front of me.
My new notebook full of all my old anatomy drawings. It was a comfort, but it hurt to flip through it.
"Rosa canina. Dog rose." Never my favourite, but it had a unique character. Almost like one of the fruit flowers. "Tulipa gesneriana. Garden tulip." The type species of tulips. Mx. Loyal really loved those. Why did I know that? "Nerium oleander." Poison. Jazz would love it.
The anatomy of flowers wasn't precisely consistent, but it wasn't terribly varied either. Number, type, and colour of petals. Type of leaves. Stamen and pistil distribution. Even flowers on trees were fairly uniform, despite their very different stems.
"Finding the secrets to [world] in there, Lillian?" Jazz was standing in the door, staring with an awestruck grin.
"Just remembering why I loved drawing flowers." I turned one around to show her. "Forsythia suspensa. Weeping forsythia. Golden bell. It has medicinal properties." She nodded then waved a hand, asking for more. I turned a few pages. "Olea capensis. Black ironwood. All I've captured is the flower, but the wood is beautiful."
She finally moved into the room and sat beside me. That's where we stayed until bed time, looking through flowers. I spent the whole time skipping certain pages. Jazz noticed, I'm sure. But she never said anything about it.