Madison Rye Progress

Ernie got out of his recliner and made his way over to Devonian. They motioned for Ernie to look at the intersection of fur along their arm. Ernie had to squint to see it, but sure enough, the pattern of fur along their arm was slowly changing and shifting to match the light yellow of the lion's fur. Devonian shifted around in their seat and ran their claws along the ends of their coat tails. Ernie could see that they were now longer than they were previously. Not only that, but the material they were made of wasn't fabric at all, but was instead hundreds of finely layered black feathers. Devonian's coat tails were actually wings. They had a slight shimmer of iridescence to them that matched Devonian's bird fork. They rustled their wings gently and Ernie took that as a hint to stop staring and back off.

"While it did take a while to adjust, I'm fortunate that uploading really did help me to achieve my transition goals."

"And what were those?" Ernie asked without thinking. He cringed slightly and hoped that Devonian did not take the question personally.

Devonian did their best to grin without showing teeth. "To be utterly incomprehensible and unable to be discreetly defined. My existence as a chimera is a blessing for me, but I understand why it would be difficult for others to experience the same. The reason I come to the meetings is less about venting my own frustrations and more about giving other people an example of a way to live with constant change as a positive aspect. I could scarcely count the number of late into the night conversations that Samantha and I have had over living with a constantly changing appearance on the System."

"Support Group for Anomalies in Forking" by @NenekiriBookwyrm goes into all the beautiful imperfections one can find in even the most basic mechanics of the System. It'll make its appearance in Clade — A Post-Self Anthology, out August 1, with pre-orders coming soon!

I called my finished sim Writer's Retreat#a9f5d4e2.

My first few days spent within the digital sanctuary led to zero results. Aside from a few typing noises and agitated mutterings, I only really stared out the beautiful window. The first thing I initially wanted to focus on was jotting down the biggest accomplishments in my life (uploading being the ultimate achievement) and my favorite memories from growing up. The more I reflected on my life though, the more I chastised myself for past failures and regrets, none of which I bothered writing down. Instead, there was this nagging feeling at the back of my mind, thinking about how much better that one bad romance novel would've been if the main character's love interest had a little more interest in getting to know her.

"I'll work on it after I'm done with this project," I promised myself.

Another few days passed. I broke away from my isolation in order to join Zion again at the Infinite Café, only for my melancholy to disappear when they mentioned how busy they were with a sim commission and had sent a fork in their place. Seeing the duplication of my friend sitting before me, relaxed and completely invested in our conversation about backlogged projects, caused a great idea to pop into my head.

"That's it!" I suddenly shot up from our table with the widest of smiles. A few heads turned but didn't remain focused on me. "Zion, you're a genius! A brilliant, brilliant genius!"

"No need to heap praises on me," their fork replied after laughing. "By the way, why am I a genius?"

I demonstrated it by suddenly creating a forked version of myself, who promptly returned to the Writer's Retreat.

They immediately understood, sharing my grin. "You're right, I'm a genius, sweetie. Just don't push yourselves too hard, okay?"

Not at first, we didn't. After renovating my one-room cabin for dual capacity, my days were spent at that desk, either jotting down vague notes or thinking back to repressed memories I'd been trying to erase. When I couldn't bear just staying in the cabin as my forked instance eagerly typed away on his own typewriter, I decided to venture outside and explore the sim. Within a couple of days, my fork asked if I'd be interested in reading the novella's rough draft. I eagerly accepted it, much to his delight, and mine.

"Not bad, actually," I said after skimming through the first chapter. "It'll need some work."

"We've got all the time in the world, right?" He sat across from me in the living room, now communal. "If this'll need to be edited and reworked, I'll want to stay for longer. I've got some other ideas I want to work on too." My fork began to snicker.

"What?" I asked.

"From now on," he explained, "you can call me 'Romance Genre'."

I stared blankly at him. "Really?"

"Yes!" He nodded vigorously, wearing a glint in his eyes I never thought was possible to see on my own face. "If I ever feel like making any forks to write other book ideas, let's name them after genres! I'll be Romance Genre, and if you ever want to start working on a political thriller, but won't get away from this slump you're in, you'll fork out Political Thriller."

I shook my head and laughed. "Whatever."

"Genre Clade" by Domus Vocis, exploring the origins of a wide-ranging clade, will be in Clade — A Post-Self Anthology, out August 1! Pre-orders open soon :D

"I say it would be wrong," began Theodulfr, "to refer to what we do, the way we live, all this, using the term 'magic.' "

"And I ask," Theosophia replied smoothly, "what better word could there be?"

Theo froze. When he'd decided to do this again, to let two opposite instances of himself debate the question on which he'd spent months of fruitless frustration, he'd planned they'd each take the other side than they now apparently were.

"When people say magic, what, in all the history of the term, have they used it to mean?" Theosophia was already presenting his case, so Theo hurried to catch up with his notes. "Formulas of power over the universe. The ability to make one's environment, in every element and detail of it, conform to one's will. Well, we have that, don't we? If you went to any madji in ancient Persia, any post-scholastic alchemist in medieval Europe, any ritual master in imperial China, and explained to them the everyday circumstances of our lives, what would they call it, other than magic?"

Theodulfr raised an impatient hand. By reflex, Theo made a checkmark on the edge of his page of notes, to keep the queue, before he reminded himself there were only two in this discussion anyway.

"What were the ultimate goals of magic, in any practice or fantasy story?" Theosophia continued. "For what was the philosopher's stone sought? Immortality and wealth. Well, we no longer age, we no longer die. And we no longer have any scarcity of anything, so wealth is a long-ago-solved problem. The philosopher's stone is real: we live within it. We all know that we all know the saying: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"Failure to distinguish between two things," Theodulfr said, "does not imply that those things are the same."

Apparently it was his turn now.

"Magic must, by definition, be an overriding of the material universe by some supernatural force. Whatever else magic is," Theodulfr gestured much more than Theosophia when he talked, "it has to do the impossible. Snapping your fingers to produce a flame is magic, using a lighter is not. Levitating into the air is magic, boarding an airplane is not. Living forever and being able to shape the world around you to your will is magic, having your mind scanned and uploaded into a computer simulation whose controls you can access is not. There's a qualitative difference: magic is numinous, awe-inspiring, wondrous. The mere fact we're even discussing the question of whether the mundane minutiae of our life counts as magic is proof that they don't. Magic is, by definition, mutually exclusive with mundane minutiae."

"That's how a thing is done, how it works." Theo recognized the rhetorical turn Theosophia was about to use, had used it himself often enough. "Not what it is."

"And next you're going to say: Just because the sky is blue by different means than a blueberry is blue." Theodulfr snorted the way Theo had learned to use a wolf's snout to snort. "or indeed the way some blue object in the System is blue, does not mean the sky is therefore not blue. That's a question of how blue works, not what blue is. We all know that one."

"Very well, then instead I'll say," Theosophia changed lines of attack, "you say magic has to do the impossible. What does impossible mean, here? If none of what we're doing is magic, then magic doesn't exist, cannot exist, because there is no 'the impossible' left for it to do!"

"It could do all the things we do in here," Theodulf parried and riposted, "in the physical world."

Apparently, Theo noted, his forks shared his refusal to say 'phys-side.' He doubted it would prove relevant.

"Sufficiently Advanced" by @RobMacWolf will appear in Clade — A Post-Self Anthology, out August 1 with pre-orders coming soon!

He glanced at the pocketwatch in his hand. It read 6:20 AM.

At that moment, the sound of the rooftop door opening reached his ears. Right on time as expected. Without even looking back, he knew who it was. No one came to the roof at this time of the day given they were "busy" with other things. But his instances were never late. "On time, every time," they would say. Being late---even once---harmed productivity. That couldn't be allowed.

"You're early?" Will asked.

Walter nodded. "I got up early to see the sunrise."

"You shouldn't have done that. Getting the optimal amount of sleep---"

"Save the speech. We have it memorized. I know full well the 'optimal' amount of sleep is required for maximum productivity and reduces dependency on energy supplements." He indicated the rising orb of light in the distance. "But it's funny how no one actually needs sleep around here."

"Following the routines ingrained in us from our lives phys-side keeps us sane."

He chose to change the subject. They'd be there for hours talking in circles otherwise. "Well, you can't tell me that shaving off a few minutes of sleep isn't worth that view."

"It is beautiful, but we should get to the point. We have to be going about our tasks by seven or else---"

"Or else we'll be late and that will harm productivity. I know," Walter finished, nettled. "But don't you just get tired of it all?"

"Tired of what?"

"Never having any free time."

"Why would we need free time? With the current schedule, we've maximized reputation acquisition and---"

"You sound like a robot."

"The Big O" by Evan Drake will appear in Clade — A Post-Self Anthology, out August 1!