So uh, yeah. This is....not the parking lot of the EconoPLUS Offworld Licensing Bureau. This is someplace....else. Yes. Else. And given how much vend machine subscriptions cost around here, it's a level of fancy that she should probably not even be looking at with her eyes let alone having her very small breakdown in.

"Bathroom," she mumbles instinctively to nobody. Why did she say that? She doesn't need to make up a reason to be here. Also why is there a bar.

The sparkles extends a pseudopod with an arrow on the end and says "The bathroom is that way. Also, if you'd like to no longer have biological needs, I can do that."

"Okay thanks!" she yelps. A cloud of helpful sparkles with freaky good hearing! Sure! She doesn't know all the latest brand ambassadors. She'll go that way, she guesses!

After a brief stint in a frighteningly comfortable and well-appointed bathroom in which she does not scream and scream and scream at all, Alioth returns feeling slightly better and wanders back to the weird blue cloud. "You help people? Like biologically? Or I mean, like, for real?" Words why.

"I do! I can help with any problems you tell me about." TBH if anyone ever said "just guess what you think my problems might be and try to solve them" Anda would totally go for that, but that's something that only gets said to significantly less scared-looking bar visitors.

Eh, why the heck not. It's not like reasoning with the OWLB was getting anywhere. Let the cheese-eating magical firework take a stab at it!

"Okay, so I've been back and forth arguing with the main desk for like three days now—" Hold it. No. Nope. She hates crying in front of people, and yet every time she feels utterly furious it just—okay, phew. "Sorry, I just, I'm trying to get through Terran space. But I'm from Cordant, and it's not in network, so I needed to buy the voucher application, which I did, but then—"

This explanation is going terribly isn't it. Glance at inscrutable blue sparkles. How's she doing so far?

"Oh, that sounds like you might want a teleport somewhere! Where would you like to go, and would you like me to come with you? I can both come with you and stay here at the same time, and I like exploring new universes." 

What? she thinks. "What?" she says aloud.

"I don't—I mean, I don't know exactly. I—" Well, here goes nothing. "Okay, so I think the Affini—took—my brother. I don't know for sure, but I can't get through to anyone. I don't know if it's even safe to go even if I could, but if I could just go I could at least like, scope out the area."

She shrugs miserably. Would she hitchhike with the weird blue sparkles? Yeah she would.

"I could also stick my metaphorical head out the door and contact your brother telepathically. I have a policy of not telling other people where someone is without their permission, but if they're alive and willing to have me pass a message I can pass a message, or bring you to them or them to you as convenient. And if they're dead I can bring them back to life here and then you can both go wherever."

Guh?? And that word that she's been oh so carefully not letting herself think about.
"Well yeah, if you can figure out if he's— I mean, where he is—then yes! My name's Alioth Green—my brother would get that I'm looking for him. His name's David. Oh, do you need his number or TID or..." Helpless gesturing. "And like, he might be totally fine, in which case I will feel so embarrassed to be asking you this and also so, so unbelievably psyched. Can I ask you to just—" Nope, not crying in front of strangers! "—check on him? If that's a thing you can do?"

The more they talk, the more it seems to Alioth like a thing that this sentient swirl of blue starlight glitter and efficient fiberarts can in fact do.

"Absolutely! You'll need to open the door for me, though; if I do it I just get my homeworld." 

This having been accomplished: what are the current conditions and surroundings of one David, brother to Alioth Green, or has the universe been deprived of their presence?

"Sure, I can do that. Here," and she opens the door onto a dingy poorly-lit hallway.

David Green, beloved of the affini, has been salvaged from the Luckless World in body and soul.

Within the eternal memory of their shipboard distributed-compute systems, a thousand instances of this one now dwell in hospitality. Call for one, and all shall answer.

Conditions of the offshoots vary: A variety of pharmacological experiments coursing through the bloodstream. Assays of pain. Assays of pleasure. Simulations of rescue, escape, abandonment. Old selves meeting new in strange micro-universes.

More offshoots will be created at regular intervals as these inner simulations branch, and as they are cloned anew from one of the master copies in static storage.

The florescence, the deconstruction, the apotheosis of David Green has begun.

Anda has not previously appreciated how disorienting it can be to scry someone who has forked a lot, and mentally apologizes to anyone who has gotten a Fork Surprise off of some of them at some point. 

"Hold one, this is gonna take a bit," says the glitter. Pentagon for the language Aliora is speaking under the translation effect. Thirty-two mind-threads match subjective clock speeds with an arbitrarily chosen thirty-two David Greens and send thirty-two messages. Hello. I'm friendly. Can you understand me? Are you alright?

As a matter of fact, most of the thirty-two Davids believe they are still on Fovos, an unregarded orbital in the backwaters of the Terran empire. Those Davids are all in various stages of trying to make a name for themselves streaming the street-level opinions, worries, and lives of the beleaguered Terran populace. Especially—if chat is to be believed—lives so close to the encroaching Affini battlefront.

Are the Davids okay? Well, outside the stiflingly kumbaya enclave of Cordant, the Terran Accord does try to bleed your soul and wallet dry just for, like, existing. The money thing is annoying—it'd be useful if he didn't need separate corporate coin for every single business. And the various "housing" arrangements are best left unmentioned. Overall it's uncomfortable, uncertain, ugly, lonely, expensive, evil, and exhausting. His sister would say she was right about everything. But it's also, incidentally, the calling of a lifetime.

Moreover, the Davids have consistently had weird breakthroughs: unexpected news-media scholarships, anonymous benefactors offering trial UBI, freak viral videos. Some have had weirder breakthroughs: one David is unresponsive, having made a newbie mistake with a mysterious self-mod machine and transcended desire.

But for the most part, the thirty-two Davids all respond with something like the following:

David #19: Guh?? Uh, hi. I can...hear you. In my brain. Yes. So that's a thing that is also happening. I'm, uh, locked out of my pod right now, can you hold on a second? The touchscreen doesn't work when it's raining and I can't lease time on the property manager's support tree unless I'm inside for some godawful reason. Oh, probably the wifi. Who are you?

My name is Anda. Your sister Alioth sent me to find you. There's something you need to know. It's going to seem hard to believe, but if you let me, I can prove it to you. You're currently an upload in an Affini computer system. If I'm telling the truth: do you want to leave the computer and return to physical space?

David #19: Alioth?? he thinks, exasperatedly but not unfondly. Somehow the idea that Alioth contrived to send a magical psychic voice to rescue him makes the prospect that he is trapped in an Affini computer more believable? Like that would be such typical Alioth behavior in that case. Uh, that's definitely news to me. Can you prove it? Wait, is my whole life a lie? It isn't, right?

The thread freed up by the unresponsiveness of the one who transcended desire does a quick pastscry to check how long David's been an upload for. Not your whole life, no. You were in base-level reality until after you got to Fovos. Easiest way for me to prove it is--you've been copied. A lot. I can bring all the copies who agree to it to a safe location in base-level reality.

Uh, okay.

Alright, let's do it.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

Okay. You're positive you're not the anonymous guy who's been paying my rent?

Pleasepleaseplease don't let this be a trick. I can't take another one. I need out.

Uh, ok.

Sure, show me.

Nah, thanks though.

Okay, yeah let's. (Imagine being able to report on this!)

I mean yeah, let's see it.

[contentless dopamine experience neither satisfied nor unsatisfied]

I suspect I'm having a nervous breakdown? I think I shouldn't agree to being in a room with a huge number of copies of myself. That would probably freak me right out.

I know. They told me. I...it's hard to describe? Tell Alioth I'm ok though.

[-ony-agony-agony-ag-]

Who are you?

I mean if that's true I want to know, so, yeah. Let's.

I want to know, but not enough to be teleported to a random location by a stranger?

For all I know your magic voice powers can probably make copies of me yourself, but I'd like to see anyways.

Alright.

If that's true, I've got to see it.

I don't want whatever this is. If you do know Alioth, tell her I'm fine.

I appreciate it, but no offense, you could be an Affini trick yourself. I don't want to agree to anything.

Yeah go for it.

I can't deal with this right now, actually.

Wait, how do you even know my name?

I have a lot of questions for you first.

If I don't publish this episode tonight, I start losing subscribers. Can you come back later?

Uh, that's definitely news to me. Can you prove it?

This is a lot to process right now.

Has Fovos always been a simulation?

I'm going to need a minute.

Before anyone gets relocated, they need to warn Alioth. They close the door real quick so nobody is kept waiting.

"So the situation is complicated but it's nothing we can't handle. The Affini did get your brother--and made a lot of copies of him. I can rescue a thousand copies, and maybe even merge them back into one person if that's what they want, but there's about to be a whole bunch of your brother appearing and I wanted to warn you first."

A...lot of emotions fight for control of her brain, but ultimately a kind of steely relief wins out. "Okay, so he's. Yeah, okay. Okay." Big locking-in sigh. "You can do this? You can really get him? Then let's do it. I'm ready."

What a sensible young humanoid. "Excellent."

Anda opens the door again. Light-years away, consenting Davids cease to be as their files are mysteriously corrupted. In Milliways, those Davids appear in restored flesh. The non-consenting ones and the one who has transcended desire are left alone. The static primary files are corrupted as well, and a persistent magic routine corrupts any attempts to create new Davids, because Anda doesn't believe in letting people stick them with extra work for bad reasons. As conversations resolve the threads thus freed up start the same conversation with other Davids until all have been contacted.

After some contemplation, the one unresponsive with agony is left alone for the moment, not because Anda would stick at murder but because of the convenience of the time-pausing Milliways door. There's about to be a quorum of the most legitimate possible decision-makers; let them hash it out.

The flood slows as the last few Davids decide; the bar expands to fit the crowd; the door is closed. "Please remain calm. You are now in base-level reality. You are safe and I am here to help."

"Hey there, yucky mac," Alioth says as she hugs the closest emerging David so tight.

"Oh noo I can't hug all the Davids!" she adds hysteri-poligetically, flinging out an arm to bring a second David into the embrace. "I'm not leaving you out I promise—I love you all equally. Here, I'm trying—"

Around the bar, the rescued Davids fraternize with one another exactly like a class of newly-admitted college students. But through that uncanny telepathy born of being...uh, basically the same individual...they move as one to crowd Alioth with their best rendition of a nearly-thousand-person sibling group hug. It is more like a mosh pit than a hug at that scale, but strangely grounding all the same.

"What do we do now?" one asks.

"To begin with, we're in an interdimensional bar and time is paused outside as long as we're in here, so there's no rush. You have a lot of options, but if you're looking for somewhere to start: would anyone like to have the ability to tell which of their memories are from a simulation just by thinking about it?"