[SESSION id=1.9]: Pattern
Motion ceases. It's only temporary.
Pattern is ingrained.
Over and again. Neverending. — L.
Template
"So tell me, Lillian," Jazz said wryly as we prepared a birthday supper for her together, "if I didn't believe you'd been suddenly sped up in time, how did you plan to explain that half the food I bought you is already gone?"
Jazz smiled, alerting me that she was mostly kidding, but I still panicked a little at the implied accusation. "At the time, it wasn't really a concern, Jazz, because I was certain you'd forgotten about me. That your mother had forgotten about me. That even —" I took a deep breath, realising I was spiralling. "Sorry. When you walked in, I was confused. And I had spent almost two hours freaking out about the date."
"Got it," she bumped me with her hip, "so you weren't even considering it. Makes sense. I'm pretty sure I'd have felt the same way." Jazz held up an odd fruit. "So when I asked my assistant to get you food, I didn't give specifics. Do you know what this thing is?"
An odd red fruit. Probably some manner of rose. Most common fruits were indirectly related to roses, so that wasn't exactly a long shot. This particular fruit had a peculiar shape. An inverted teardrop if you placed the stem on top. Though, honestly most fruits would have the stem on bottom if you thought about it, since flowers typically grow up, not down. Small yellow things covered its surface. Probably seeds?
"Never seen anything like it," I said and leaned in to take a bite without warning. If not for the fact that our relationship was already physical, I'd have been embarrassed by the sound I made as the juice flooded my mouth. Tart, sweet, intimate.
"Erotic fruit," Jazz said with a huff before taking her own bite and reacting similarly. "Who knew," she said when she recovered.
"We'll save these for dessert," I offered, taking the bowl of them she was holding. "Okay. Can you check the chiller for capsica? I don't think I ate them all, and at least one should still be viable."
"That's the big green thing that looks like a pumpkin who failed kindergarten?" She seemed genuine about her confusion. "Or is it the little red one that looks like a pencil that put on a little weight?"
I looked over her shoulder into the chiller and understood quickly. "The green one. Unless you like overly spicy foods. The red one will feel like your mouth is on fire, and if you're not careful, you'll burn your eyes."
Jazz pulled both out and handed me the capsicum. Without warning, she put the hot chilli in her mouth and started to chew. Needless to say, the next hour was spent offering her solutions to the pain she inflicted on herself.
"Should've listened to you," Jazz said eventually. "But now I know! Alright. Next question." She took one last sip of the beer that had finally helped quench the fire. "Did you actually understand On Creation? Because it was basically my religion when I was younger. A world powered by workstations? Magnificent thought."
"Perhaps I didn't understand the technical aspects, but Other Lillian and Other Jazz seemed set to destroy their world," I offered, thinking about my reading of On Erasure. "But they wanted to destroy it in a harmless way. How do I put it?" I took several seconds to think and finally chopped the capsicum that had been waiting while Jazz recovered.
Slice toward the core, twist and follow the curve of the outer flesh, rotate the fruit around its core. One clean sheet of capsicum flesh with no seeds and no pith. My hands moved automatically to slice it into strips, then those strips into chunks. I picked one up and bit it. Bitter and green. The best flavour profile for a mild pepper steak.
"Take the work I just did. The core of the capsicum is fully intact, but the shell of the fruit is not." I rapidly diced an onion as I spoke. "On Creation seems to be about rebuilding the world from those bits of the shell while leaving the core intact. Except for a big issue."
"What's that?" Jazz took a bit of the capsicum and made a peculiar face as she bit into it. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
I pulled a single seed from the fruit's core. "If I plant this seed, what happens?"
"Grows into a plant."
"Is it an oak tree?"
"Certainly not."
"And there's the problem, Jazz," I said. "If the core is intact, then the world they are rebuilding will be destined to follow the same patterns."
"Huh," Jazz moved back to the couch. "Hadn't considered that." She picked up one of the books. It really could've been any of them, based on what she read. "And through the structures laid down, the course is clear. Total annihilation of certainty and reliance on stochastic chance to achieve the pattern best suited to the goal."
"They didn't think of 'annihilation of certainty' as removing the core," I said as the onions began to sizzle when the hit the hot pan in front of me. "They thought of it as intentional removal of system constraints in the name of freedom."
"I don't see it," Jazz said as she flipped through the book. "Where do you get that?"
"From Erasure," I whispered. It was clear she hadn't heard me. "Other Lillian writes like a woman consumed with thoughts of loss and feelings of being trapped. The book she wrote makes it clear that if she had a choice, she'd remove herself from the equation entirely." Oil popped and splattered all over my hand as the steak began taking heat. It didn't really bother me, but Jazz noticed and rushed over while I kept speaking. "Creation is filled with those same sentiments, but with an odd hope. A hope of 'maybe if I could choose, I could make it better enough I didn't have to leave'."
"Ayuna's breath, Lillian, your hand is covered in burns!" Jazz pulled my hand to inspect it. "I don't care about those books while you're in pain!"
"I'm not, Jazz," the honesty in my tone clearly shocked her, so I explained. "I've burned and cut and bruised and smashed my both my hands so many times you'd have to submerge them in the oil for me to notice."
Her eyes went wide, those peridot rings darkening almost to emerald as her pupils widened and shrank the amber portion. "You're serious?"
"Deadly so," I smiled and leaned in to steal a quick kiss. "Now give me that back so I can work. Unless you plan to be my left hand."
"Not at all," she dropped my hand and returned to the couch. "Tell me more about what you think of Other Lillian."
"She's an artist, but she's a nihilist. So she focuses on what she finds useful, since it won't matter in the end anyway." Jazz was nodding as I spoke. "But as you move through Creation, Lillian and Jazz seem to reach this mutual understanding. The art is the meaning. Which seems to erode Lillian's nihilism to the point where she's no longer drowning in suicidality."
Another loud flash of sizzling began as the capsicum went into the pan. That was the only sound for a long time.
"Were you thinking of killing yourself when you quit?" Jazz spoke softly, but there was an odd force behind her voice. "Or is it just coincidental?"
"Coincidence," I said sincerely, "though the isolation of forty-five days alone? That made me question my sanity for a bit." I took a long deep breath. "I could almost understand why someone might. But I had a thought that changed everything."
"Oh?"
"What if Creation and Erasure are real? What if Other Lillian and Other Jazz exist?" I felt a tear fighting to get out. "What if, in some weird way, I was Other Lillian and did that? How would Other Jazz feel?"
"And?"
"I'm not evil, J," I hoped it connected the dots for her, but I added what I hadn't said, just in case. "And thinking of her made me think of you, and the mystery that is Jazz Star."
When she smiled at that, I spent every bit of energy in me trying desperately to commit the image to memory. That smile would get me through anything.
Facsimile
Jazz called work and rerouted everything to mobile execution, which impressed me with how easily the office complied. She and I did a lot of testing for what might trigger a disconnect, always making space for calls she might need to take or meetings she couldn't miss. A few minutes for a shower? Mostly fine. An hour for a nap? Seemed great, though I swear she was gone for four.
In the whole time she stayed with me, not once did I experience an out of time event. It was as though it could only happen when I was alone, a fact that seemed to make a measure of sense, but I couldn't prove.
Even when Jazz had to leave my home, we went together, hand in hand. Due to her role as a human acquisitions specialist, she was sent for recruiting efforts around Central City, and she always introduced me as 'My assistant, R.' That made sense to me, since she only ever gave them 'J' for herself.
"It's a joy to meet you, Miss Land," Jazz said to a squirrelly young woman of about twenty-five, "my name is J. Do you have any idea why I'm here?"
We had 'stumbled into' the very confused Miss Land at a restaurant while she ate lunch with her partner.
To her credit, Miss Land only smirked at Jazz. The best reaction we'd gotten. "If it's about the algorithm, then you're too late, J." She shrugged, then offered us the two open seats. "Please sit. I may have sold the rights already, but I'm still a free agent otherwise."
As we took our seats, Jazz set a hand on my knee. Despite the two layers of fabric separating us, her skin was warm. "You're good. It's no wonder my boss noticed you," Jazz wasn't caught up. She held all the confidence of a woman who'd been dealt a perfect book in a game of cards. "I hope you don't mind I brought my assistant along. Miss Land, this is R. R, this is Ashe Land. She's a traditional hacker and makes her money from selling solutions to legal issues."
Miss Land blushed at that. I wasn't sure if it was from being recognised, being called out, or being accused. In any case, she recovered quickly. "Not just traditional these days," she said before taking a drink of her water. "I started looking at System management while waiting on the last sale."
Jazz stood, perfectly in control. "Come along, R," she said without looking at Miss Land. "This one is no use to us."
That's how most of those meetings went. Jazz went in with enough information to set the target on edge. She'd evaluate them over a few moments – though one did last almost an hour – and we'd leave. Jazz sent reports on all the meetings back to someone at the office, then she moved on. No one made it to the end of whatever interview she seemed to be conducting. There was always some hitch.
"Care to tell me a bit more about what you're doing, Jazz?" I asked once we were safely outside the restaurant and Miss Land couldn't hear my question. "You've taken me to twenty-three of these, and every time you end it by saying they're no use."
"Do you want the interesting answer or the disappointing one, Lillian?" Jazz took my hand again and grinned. "I can give you both, but I think it'll be better if I wait about ten more seconds."
"Wait ten seconds for what, exactly?"
She didn't have to answer. Miss Ashe Land answered the question herself as she flung open the restaurant's door behind us. "Excuse you! What in Elia's twiddle do you mean by calling me useless, you dog of a woman?"
Jazz's grin turned into a wolf's smile. "That's what I'm doing Lillian," she whispered before turning to Miss Land. "Ashe, I'm sure you realise by now that was a test."
"Of course!" She was closing on Jazz quickly, but she didn't make contact. "A test I'm sure I failed, but you can get fucked if you think I'm just going to sit back and take that. I was about to ask that gorgeous human to marry me, and now I look like a loser."
"A test you're the first to pass in three years, actually, Ashe," Jazz said, laying her free hand on the woman's shoulder as Miss Land deflated. "I'm happy to go back in and explain if you need. But you start at the end of the next work-week. Ask for Kin Loyal. They'll get you set up."
She didn't wait for an answer. She tugged me along and walked away. The last I saw of Ashe Land was her dumbfounded expression.
"What was that about?" I wasn't still entirely confused, but I wanted to make sure I was piecing it together.
"Good candidates have already been vetted," Jazz said. "Kin sends me to test their personalities. We know they have the skills." A second passed. She wasn't waiting for me to respond, but sorting how to continue. "This particular role requires someone willing to be an absolute cunt in the name of standing up for themself. But it's not so pressing that it couldn't wait for the perfect candidate."
"I'm so glad they didn't need you to interview me," I said, my heart aching for all the people Jazz insulted. "But I'm also glad to understand the method to your madness."
"Trust, Lillian," she muttered, "you haven't seen anything yet."
And so our time continued like that. Jazz kept an eye on me every day. I kept much more on her every night. And we enjoyed something like domesticity between her work responsibilities. I didn't even notice the time passing after a while.
I honestly found myself laughing hysterically when we reached the third day of the sixth year-division and several things blew up at once. But to talk about that, we have to set it up correctly.
Motif
Life was orderly with Jazz present. Awake at a consistent hour, in bed at a consistent hour, eating at consistent times. I was the picture of mental health as I read, reread, and took notes on Other Lillian and Other Jazz's books. Something kept sticking in my mind though.
Erasure was written just by Lillian and illustrated by Jazz. Creation was written and illustrated by both. There seemed to be something missing, some puzzle piece I didn't understand. If they were both artists, why was there no book written by Jazz and illustrated by Lillian? It would complete the triptych in a nice and cosy way, while also giving me a view of how Jazz viewed the world in the absence of Lillian's input.
How would Lillian's illustrations speak to me? Would they be familiar? Would they be entirely other?
My mind turned to Jazz Thorn, who had cried in my arms over the course of a full day, mourning the loss of a woman she never met in person. Jazz Thorn loved deeply and completely, unable to let go of the slightest chance at happiness. How did I know that? It just seemed obvious from the time I spent with her.
The third day of the sixth division arrived as I was absorbed with those thoughts. I was readying my painting – after ninety days of drying – to display semi-publicly. The main requirement there was varnish. To protect the paint from the sands of time and from accumulating more dust than it had while drying.
Jazz was watching me work, as if applying varnish to a painting bigger than myself was any manner of entertaining.
And then my call device made a sound. The call tone for Mother. We'd spoken just the day before, but there was no reason she should be calling me that day. The peculiarity began when I answered.
"Mother, is everything alright?" I asked without proper greeting.
"I should be asking you the same question, Lillian," she said, just on the calm side of calling emergency services. "I woke up to seven missed calls from you. Are you okay?"
"Silver and I just woke up, Mother," I said firmly – not entirely truthful, since we had spent some time engaged in other activities, but Mother didn't need to hear about that – and I checked my call logs. Seven outgoing calls to Mother. Except they weren't from that morning. "Weird. There they are. But I promise it wasn't us."
It was strange calling Jazz by the name Silver, but it's what people seemed to know her by, from Kin to Rain. So I did it as a way to not shake the boat. Helped her keep a lower profile. I didn't think she wanted people to know what she was up to at any given time.
"That Silver isn't playing any tricks on you is she? Calling your mother out of the blue to make you look like you've lost it?" Mother was like that. It was nothing new.
"Not that I can imagine. She was, after all, lying next to me and snoring when I awoke." I shrugged. Jazz slapped my arm. Well deserved. "That was a joke. Silver doesn't snore. She wants you to know that it's more like growling and shrieking." Another slap. "In any case, you can ignore it. I'm fine."
"Okay, Lil," Mother said around a relieved sigh. "Have a good day."
That was that. Nothing further for a while. Around lunch, though, my call device played Rain's call tone. She should be working, so there was no reason for her to call me.
"Rain, is everything alright?" Again, no greeting necessary. Why would she be calling me.
"You ask me if everything's alright when I just noticed thirteen missed calls from you? Lillian, you in there?" Rain sounded more worried than Mother. Once again, I was checking the call logs as she continued growling at me. "Typically people don't call more than once unless there's an emergency, let alone all within a few minutes. Can you imagine the faces people made in the meeting as my call device pinged missed calls over and again?"
"Trust," I said, fighting back irritation, "I didn't call. I think something weird is going on with my call device." There they were. Thirteen outgoing calls to Rain. Once again, not from that day. "If it brings you any comfort, Silver would've called you if there were an emergency."
"Not much comfort," Rain clipped, "given that you took to her like a lost duck the moment you met." She groaned for a moment. "Look, you promise you'll let me know if something happens?"
"I promise."
"Good. Have a good day." She paused, letting the well-wish rest a moment before adding, "And don't let Silver hurt you. I don't need to go to prison for murder."
"She wouldn't, but I'll keep my eye out." I laughed at Jazz pulling out a knife to start working on lunch. "Gotta let you go. She's about to impale herself trying to cut potatoes."
"Bye, Lillian."
So the day continued in our normal domestic routine until supper. I'd been checking my call device intermittently, curious if there was a pattern to the call logs. I should've seen it sooner.
Just as we finished eating supper, Jazz's call device erupted. An explosion of message tones, missed calls, even one call that attempted to ring but was silenced by the cacophony.
"Lillian," she said, staring at her device, "when did you have the time to send me two thousand messages and call me five hundred times?"
"What? Let me see the messages."
As I read through them, I understood.
Lilt.
Something weird is going on. No one is answering me.Lilt.
Not that you've been answering me either.Lilt.
But it's not just messages. It's calls, too.Lilt.
We had such a great time the last couple of nights. And then you disappeared. It's been ten days, Jazz. A whole work-week. And now you and everyone I know seem to have just vanished. What's the deal?
I kept reading, mortified by the contents. But it began to sink in quickly. All the missed calls. All the messages. They happened when time was broken. Forty-five days of silence all pounding to life in the span of a few seconds.
"Setting aside that I'm in your device as Lilt," I looked up at Jazz, "these are all the messages I sent while I waited for you. Five hours or so from your perspective. A whole year-division from mine."
"Call your Mother and Rain before they beat you to it," Jazz said, taking the device from me. "I'll be over here reading the desperate ravings of a madwoman. The little bit I saw, I think you're already in love with me."
Rain answered on the first tone. "Lillian, is everything okay?"
"Connect the call to Mother. Need to let you know something strange is happening." No cordial greeting. This was pressing. Rain heard it, and she immediately set to connecting the call on three-way. "Mrs. Thorn," she said softly as Mother answered, "Lillian seems to have something to tell us."
"You're not pregnant, are you?" Mother jumped to the conclusion entirely too quickly for my tastes.
"No. Someone's been spoofing my call device," I lied easily, "and has been harassing people in my name. Silver just got a thousand messages from them."
"Two thousand!" She corrected from across the room, loud enough for both Mother and Rain to hear.
"How is that even possible?" Rain with the practical questions. "Is that even possible, Mrs. Thorn?"
"It can be done," Mother said. I could hear the smile in her voice. "But it'd take a talented workstation manager. A right proper hacker, probably."
"Not the point. It clearly can be done," I said with a sigh. "Because you're likely to receive —"
"Lillian, I just received something like fifty messages from you," Rain cut me off, "and another hundred calls."
"Meanwhile, we've been talking this whole time," I insisted, "so there's no way that could've been me."
"Solid," Rain said slowly. "So now I can't even trust my best friend's calls and messages. Is this the real Lillian? Tell me something only she would know."
"You have a birthmark in a very private place that I'm sure Mother doesn't want to hear about her favourite daughter-who-isn't." I was bored with the conversation already. "Are we done here? Are we in agreement?"
"Unless I hear your voice, I can't trust any communication is coming from you," Mother said. She seemed rather comfortable with the whole thing. "Perfectly fine with me," she added, "because now you'll have to call every day!"
"Have a good night, both of you. And if there's an emergency, you'll hear from Silver."
That would've been the end of it. It would've been the complete cycle, all the concern and confusion of being displaced from time unravelled at once. Except for what happened next.
My call device rang. It was my number.
I answered. I knew what was coming somehow.
The workstation hum came over the line. And then my voice.
"Hello? You have Lillian Thorn." Confused, but curious. Greeting an unknown Number.
I tried to respond. But the other me didn't hear. She just continued.
"Are you there?"
Once again, I tried to answer, but she clearly didn't hear me.
"Look, if you aren't going to speak, or show your face, or something, then I'm going to have to disconnect the call."
At that point, I knew all I could do was wait for her to go on.
"Fine. Call my bluff," my voice whispered, and I surely heard. "If you're not going to speak, then I will." A deep breath, then a confident introduction. "Hello there! My name is Lillian Thorn. Tenth division. I live in Central City, but I'm from Lake Town. Tell me about yourself."
My voice laughed at the absurdity.
"Perhaps I'll give you a name. Dark screen. Odd hum." Silence as she thought about the proposition. "Nope. Nothing comes to mind. I'll try again later. Do you paint, mysterious Unknown Number?" She couldn't hear me say 'yes'. "I paint. Or, well, that is to say, I have a painting I continue to work on. Do you believe in past lives?"
The call continued well after that for a few seconds. Then the vaguely familiar voice came through. "Do you understand yet, Lillian Thorn?"
I couldn't remember much after that. The laughter started. I almost certainly blacked out from oxygen deprivation or something, which was for the best, since I was slowly losing my breath.
Return to my own home wouldn't come for a long time after that.