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?"

General consensus: yes. A few don't want to be tampered with, a few don't want to jeopardize their work, a few want to try it temporarily, but most agree outright.

"Uh, me too actually." says Alioth, raising her hand and waggling it. "What? Just in case."

"That's totally fair! I'm actually going to do it for myself too, because why not." Everyone who is interested in the power now has it, temporarily or permanently as specified. "Second order of business: does anyone want to merge with anyone else and keep both sets of memories? I've done that a few times and it's pretty easy to get used to, but if you think being nine hundred guys is awesome then that's awesome."

"Nine hundred birthday gifts a year??" mouths Alioth in dawning horror. "Visiting our parents' house?" And then another thought occurs to her.

"Oh, but David — David, David, David, seriously, you shouldn't all merge. Look what happened when you went off to Fovos: if there was only one of you, and anything happened and Anda hadn't come along—I mean not that I'd feel any better if a copy of you got—wait hold on is this kind of a busted thing to be saying? Sorry, I'm just gonna...chill for a minute..."

"It's cool conceptually but I don't think I need a thousand of me to exist?"
"Ick, so I'd have hundreds and hundreds of weeks worth of memories like that on Fovos? Not great."
"I was actually in an Affini sim. Oh god."
"But maybe if there were two or three of me, that would actually be kind of based."
"Does my voice always sound like that?"
"Aw, Allie, no, it's not busted! Frankly I think chucking copies of me into a black hole whenever you get grumpy could be therapeutic for you. A valuable if pricey service I would be happy to provide."
"Is there even a Fovos there to go back to? What about the people I interviewed?"
"You too? Man, I hated that guy! He could've just said to try the restaurants a block away!"
"Okay, so how many of me do we want there to be?"
"Can we rescue my interview recordings? Wait, what's journalistic ethics on interviews that turned out to be wholly simulations. Probably bad right?"
"Check out the blue sparkles in charge. That's so cool."
"Were other people on Fovos taken?"
"But like, how did she find a psychic sparkle voice to rescue us, you know? Why is she like this."
"Yeah I hate the idea of like, drawing straws to see who gets to exist. Merging is a way better idea."

"I'm afraid there is not, currently, a Fovos to go back to. Everyone in the system had the same thing happen to them as happened to you. I intend to rescue all of them too. But I'm going to need to find a star system in a safe part of space where I can put the orbital back so they all have somewhere to live."

(While they say this, the other thirty-one mind-threads are making eights, or in a few cases teaming up to collect enough attention to make nines. Mass resurrections are awesome but also kind of suck. Getting to build a megastructure is awesome with a side of awesomesauce.)

(To Anda) "Huh, it's gotta be someplace far enough away that the Affini don't just capture it, but close enough to Accord transit that we aren't stranded in uncharted space."
"—get it? This is bigger than Fovos. This is like, revolutionary. Depending on how much they want to help us."
"Ow! I was kidding! Kidding!"
"We can swap roles afterwards if you're mad about it! Just ignore the smartphone and explain your recent experiences to me as if I'm hearing about them for the first time."

"What does Accord transit look like, functionally? I can potentially provide ferries or portals or something depending on the details of how your FTL works. But really what I should do is fix the thing where sometimes aliens eat your stuff, and then figure out the replacement orbital under fewer constraints, if you're alright living in this interdimensional bar while I deal with that. Have the Affini sent humanity a manifesto or do they have an identifiable government or anything like that?"

"In theory, you can jump faster than light wherever we've found a wormhole between places. In practice," a fleeting dark expression, "the logistics get more complicated than that."

"Do they have a government? Unclear. I get the idea they're sort of a hive mind? Sometimes their captives send videos, but chat doesn't think it's official. They're sort of hard to understand. Probably if you wanted to talk to them, showing up around Fovos would do it."

"What can we can do to help? You know, while we're here?"

"I could really do with a native guide! Your world has a lot of technology mine doesn't. Does the FTL ever result in closed timelike loops? I mean, people meeting their past selves and stuff. Also, who or what is chat?"

"Oh, chat's just the scuttlebutt on the local internet. You know, news of the day, hot takes, that kind of thing. Most people think the Affini are a hive mind, but it's really hard to tell when they don't really communicate directly."

"I don't think that's ever happened, but it'd be cool if it did. Maybe if you took the long way back, if you managed to find your way and survive that long?"

"Huh, maybe I'll try that at some point. Or maybe I'll avoid it forever; time travel gives me the creeps. Uh, is there any kind of interstellar government that might complain about me putting an orbital somewhere without asking?"

"Well technically...," David temporizes. Awkward glance at Alioth.

"...technically, you'd need a development permit from whichever of the corporate AIs owns that region of space. Sometimes it's obvious who that is, sometimes less so—at least to me. No one I know really pays attention to real estate unless they have a special interest in corporate law, but basically the corporate AIs have divvied it up among themselves, even the uncharted stuff they haven't gotten to yet. And I doubt you'd get permission unless you were like, PAC-tier."

"You guys have AIs running stuff? What are they, uh, like?" If they're superintelligent Anda is going to operate entirely from Milliways and just not go out. 

Oh! Oh.

"I hear you, but no, these aren't like futuristic scifi minds— they're ascended corporations. Way, way, more cycles and reach than any individual human, way, way more data, but still not especially enlightened. They just regulate the economy: what things cost, who owns things, who's allowed to buy things, what everyone's civic privileges are, what deals to make, what planets to take over next, that kind of thing. They're based on language models, so for all I know someone like you could talk to them, but I have no idea if they'd have anything to say."

"Oh huh, you guys got supercomputer central planning to work and it's not just a huge pain in the neck? That's pretty neat. As long as they're not going to predict all my decisions before I consider them, decide I'm a threat to their ten-million-year plan, reverse-engineer my magic from the underlying physics of the multiverse and eat me with nanobots or whatever then I'm not bothered. Anyway, if being rich will make it easier to do stuff without breaking a bunch of laws, I could get a legal identity and sell stuff, but I don't want to let the Affini screw up a bunch more people's lives while I yakshave. How bad are the consequences likely to be, for both me and people who aren't me, if I build first and ask permission later? Or make new stars out past the edge of the galaxy where nobody could reasonably have claimed anything yet?"

"No, no, we are definitely living in a badly-run dystopian nightmare. Cordant is a privately-owned system with an endowment, so we're kind of sheltered from the worst of it, but it's still pretty yikes. "

"If the corporations catch you trying to exist and/or do things outside their economic panopticon, they're liable to freak and send in the military. But if you build stuff off the edge of their maps, eh, what they don't know can't hurt them. Did you say you can make your own wormholes? Can you make it so that like, the Affini can't use them? Oh! Can you make it so the corporations can't see them? Are you actually magic? How does that work?"

"Ah, alright then, next time I go home for a visit I'll tell the economists they were right and we shouldn't try it. And in the meantime I'll build my own galaxy and not let anyone in who looks like they plan to cause trouble. And yes, I am extremely magic! The way it works is--I want to say 'the way it works is I can do whatever I want', but I can't make myself smarter, or learn information except by copying objects I know exist or looking at places, or get between universes except by being in Milliways. But mostly I can do whatever I want."

"Coooooool."

"Alright, last order of business before I start making stars, and I'm afraid it's an unpleasant one."

"One of the Davids was in too much pain to talk to me about what they wanted, with no sign of not being in pain any time soon, and had been like that for a while. I left them alone for the moment because closing the door pauses time. You guys are the authority on how best to help them. Should I pull them out or leave them be or just kill them or other?"

"Is...is there any way to find out what's going wrong and fix it? Could you fix him if you pulled him out?"

"I could pull them out and make them not be in pain anymore. I don't know whether they'll be able to say what they want, at that point, but I'm willing to try."

"Okay, let's do that." The Davids are surprisingly in agreement. It's a very strange feeling to know that a version of you is suffering out there somewhere—or would be suffering, if he understands how the bar room door works—and that you're in a room full of people who feel basically the way you do about it. Similar to how he doesn't have to look over to see Alioth's rigid posture and determined expression. It's worse, somehow, when it's happening to someone who isn't you, he realizes.

"Alright. Would it go better if a few of you came upstairs to a comfortable bedroom or should I just put them right here?"

Oh. "Good idea—I'd definitely want a private room if it was me. I mean, it sort of is me, but—you know what I mean." Despite intellectually understanding the situation with the door, he can't help feel overwhelming urgent jitters. The atmosphere is thick with it.

"Listen, don't—this is your thing. You know I'll be up there in a heartbeat if you want me to be, but I don't have to. Just take care of things and—let us know when you know, okay?"

"Aw c'mon, Allie." David says blithely, like he doesn't see her holding her composure together with both hands. "All of us got the big surprise of seeing you when we got pulled out. We can't deprive the next guy of the same experience."

While one David waits expectantly by the door to their world, he and Alioth and a second David peel off from the group with a minimal flutter of negotiation, and stand by the cloud of blue sparkles as if to say We're ready. Lead the way.

"I'm still watching down here too, so I can see out the door for the extraction," they say, splitting off a smaller cloud of blue glitter shaped like a cartoon eye to mark their scrying sensor and leading the rest of the party upstairs.

As of the moment before Anda opens the door, the room contains a comfy bed, some flowering plants, chairs for everyone including one for not-here-yet David, and soft blue carpet that must be well over an inch deep.

And once everyone is settled in and a downstairs David cracks the door for a moment: one more corrupted file, one David in the bed in perfect physical health like the rest of them.

David⁂: [ony-agony-agony-agony-ag] [silence]

David⁂: Imago...? Is it over?

But he doesn't feel any different. The white, impossible pain is gone, and ordinary thoughts trickle slowly back, belonging only to him. And he feels like ordinary David. He opens his eyes onto an unfamiliar room.

"What happened?" he mumbles.

"You got captured by the Affini and uploaded, but you're out and you're safe now. The Affini made a bunch of copies of you and some of them are here and some are downstairs. We're in a space outside the universe."

"They were hurting you pretty bad," adds Alioth softly. "How does it feel now?"

"What? NO!" David⁂ sits up and looks around. Bewilderingly, there are two identically-dressed clones of himself standing anxiously nearby, along with a cloud of blue glitter, and— "Alioth? Now why the ████ did you go and do that for?" Looking at her suddenly stricken face, he knows he's being unfair, but the gravity of what he just lost...

"You don't understand anything! That implant was a test, and I was going to earn it. You break in front of Her, and she holds every shard. She promised I'd be— she said that nothing would ever—"

To his complete embarrassment, and entirely without warning, David, beloved of the Affini, sobs ugly hot tears onto the blue bedspread.

This was supposed to be private.

I don't even know if She'll have me back anymore.

Oh dear, did Anda interfere in someone's consensual sex life? Extremely cringe and fail of them if so. They look at the other Davids for some sign as to whether this is the sort of thing it's in the nature of Davids to do and also whether they should fuck off back downstairs or stick around or offer to put this David back or what.

The other Davids are mortified and confused! They would never act like this! Like, yes, the guy has apparently been in a lot of pain but also!!

While one goes to comfort Alioth and maybe suggest wandering downstairs together for a bit, the other turns to Anda and as discreetly as possible, tries to communicate "what do we do now. do we put him back? that seems sort of evil. can you deprogram him?"

This is a private telepathy channel with just you two, Anda says to the two communicative Davids. I really don't want to mess with someone's mind without their consent. Consent from a close fork is almost as good but I'd like to know more of what's going on first. The Davids should find replying by telepathy easy and intuitive.

Out loud: "Is it okay if I read your memories to understand you better?"

⁂: "No!! What? You're—glitter! I don't even know you."
D: "Dude, you've got to chill."

Can you calm him down somehow? Put him in a time chamber until he's normal? Make him an actual chill pill? This is so messed up.

"David, it's fine. I said I'm fine—Anda, you grant wishes, don't you? Can you figure out what this David's wish is?"

"I don't have to be glitter if you'd rather I looked like a human or something; I started out human. Is there anything you want me to do or any situation you'd consider an improvement on your current one?"

⁂: "It's not about— " With a sudden violent motion, David⁂ beats his fists against his face. "Augh! I want to go home! But I can't anymore! She promised me that once the Affini had me, they would never let go. 'No power in the known universe can separate an Affini from her floret or lessen her devotion by one bit.' That's the first thing they promise, when they're just voices; the gifts, the pain, all that builds on that absolute trust. Well I guess I've been ruined, now! I don't even know if I want to forget, since it's true they're not—not all-powerful. I don't know if they'll have me. I don't think they'll want any cuttings of me. But just send me back."

Uh, okay, I...don't feel comfortable about sending this guy back, honestly. Wouldn't be fair to him, because he's not thinking straight—what happens when he changes his mind half a year from now?—and I don't want a brainwashed version of me floating around out there doing who knows what while looking like me.

Yeah, and if they've got him, then they can probably just rewind him to make more of me if they want—no thanks, I'll pass. Although I guess they can already do that since they scanned the original David...

They can already do that, yeah, I was going to get to that after this one was okay--a bunch of the ones who thought they were just running around on Fovos didn't believe me or didn't want to stop doing what they were doing. So they could copy more off of those. But we have options there.

"I don't know a lot about Affini. But I know some things about love and devotion. And if someone really loves you, then being temporarily separated from them by someone else isn't going to make them love you less. I could destroy your physical form and unscramble your data pattern in their computer, and from your perspective and theirs it would be like you never came here, just like you stopped existing for a fraction of a second and then started again. But if you want that, then before I do it, I'd really like to understand a little more about why. So I don't accidentally hurt anyone else the way I hurt you."

A heavy sigh as David⁂ tries to calm down enough to think straight. If there are other florets like him, he really does want to stop Alioth and the rest from well-intentionedly ruining their lives.

⁂: "I can explain it, but that doesn't mean you'll get it. I mean, I thought they were brainwashers, too, before I knew. But the story goes: imagine you knew that somewhere out there in the universe, maybe far in the future, is a person who adores you—you in particular. They know all about you and cannot wait to meet you and are coming to be with you as fast as they can. Imagine what that kind of certainty does for you when times are tough. They can heal any wound or weakness. They can lift you out of any struggle—make you better than any challenge you'll face. And whenever you'd cut off pieces of yourself to fit how the world wants you to be, or punish yourself out of hatred, or cower from your greatness because you're afraid or think you're worthless—they heal that too. No more knots in the soul."

⁂: "Like, I know I had a pretty good life beforehand, but I—I really liked the David I could have become with them. There's something about...if you can submit to someone's trust completely, you can find all the hidden places in yourself—things too vulnerable to know alone, and so you never do—and give them peace. You can grow in whole new directions. I—my other implants are gone, too, or maybe just deactivated. But you become like Them, eventually. That's the story. That's what they want the whole universe to sing about them. That somewhere out there, they love you enough to find you wherever you are tired and hurting, and that they will never give up on you. I really believed they were powerful enough to keep me safe through anything I'd ever suffer again. It was...really nice."

Anda has had thoughts about something like that, sometimes, about whether they could really be a friend to every individual person in a world. It turns out they can't, not without way more self-modification than they're willing to do. They can be friendly with everyone, they can be helpful to everyone, but genuine friendship and affection is always going to be rarer.

"The one who loves you, did they make the other Davids? Or was that someone else?"

⁂: "The one who loved me was called Imago." Sad small laugh. "She wanted that name and that voice, even though an Affini body carries enough minds inside her that she is never really just one person. It felt like she was...the whole world, and the only thing in it. She was cultivating me, you know? Starting from that original David and finding ways to build upward. I guess I don't know for sure who made the Davids or how much She was really doing Herself. But I saw a few offshoots of me before I was taken, and they were all Hers."

"Did you know how many other Davids existed before a few minutes ago? Did Imago explain why they wanted to cause you a lot of pain? Did they ask your permission?"

"Not the exact total number? You're almost always in separate sims. And I—that's sort of a weird question? Pain comes up sometimes as a side effect, or a diagnostic, or to teach you about a mental movement, or something. I never really thought about it as the point of what they're doing.

Like, if the implant happens to be painful, then part of what the surgery achieves is you having endured ten-out-of-ten pain for the sake of something that you want, something that betters you. And then what betters you is not only the device, but the glow of achievement, or—probably—the safety of having been shattered and defeated but also held throughout. It's a layer on top of the thing, not the purpose of the thing itself? You're not...alone with it like you used to be. In a way, ordinary pain starts to feel like Her attending presence, like whenever you hurt from now on, it is with Her standing between you and it. But not just about pain, right, She's attending whatever you're doing, making it purposeful."

Wow, this is extremely something out of the kind of romance novel you don't read on the train. And the disclaimers in the front of those novels saying "please don't try to do this in real life" hit different when you meet someone who actually needs them.

"That makes a lot of sense as a thing to want from someone. But I'm concerned about the fact that other people who are also you didn't expect you to want it. Should I let the three of you talk it out privately and come to some sort of agreement on what things are good for a David?" Approximately nobody wants to admit to their repressed sexual desires in front of a cloud of glitter they just met. Probably not in front of their sibling either but maybe Anda will get lucky and Alioth will infer that themself.

⁂: "What's so criminal about liking something people didn't expect? Life doesn't all have to make sense in advance."

D1: "Okay but this isn't about getting a new hobby like you're some kind of middle-aged sunhopper; it's about getting pulled into a psycho plant cult! You were kidnapped!!"

⁂: "You don't have to control everything that happens to you! You don't have to plan what to like next, who you're going to be next, pick things out a day in advance to make sure you stay the same person! That's what you don't understand! Sometimes stuff just happens and you grow because of it! Sometimes luck is what makes it happen, sometimes it's people."

D2: "I don't know what this David's problem is, but as far as 'good for Davids' is concerned, this is so many levels of yikes beyond anything I would ever want. And I kinda don't want to be in the same room as him either."

⁂: "Well, as soon as you're done kidnapping me to save me from being kidnapped, I'll get out of your hair!" David⁂ snaps.

"Hey!" bellows Alioth. "I think we're all a little freaked out right now because of the Affini thing and our brain juices are making us say dumb stuff. You-David," she points. "I'm guessing you remember when you left for Fovos? I wasn't psyched about that! I told you why I thought it was a terrible idea! And then I threw you a going-away party because I care about what you want. I'm sorry I like, pulled you out of a situation you wanted to be in because it looked like my baby brother was kidnapped and maybe—worse. I was doing the best job I could based on knowing nothing and I got it wrong."

"And you two! I can't think of something more embarrassing than watching myself go through a breakup meltdown about a space alien who kidnapped and maybe tortured me! But like, this other David⁂ is a real person who is going through it right now, and you're all like a couple weeks out from being the same person, and you're all my brother. Everyone cut each other some slack so I can think for one second about how to fix this!" She bites her lip thoughtfully and glances at Anda.

(private channel to Alioth) Thank you Alioth, you're so awesome. 

"I'm coming to this from a position of not really knowing any of you, so if I made any decisions it would just be because I have the power to implement my decisions and not because I have any reason to believe my decisions are the best ones. But David⁂, if I'm understanding you right, the key things for you are that Imago loves you, and you believe the things you're doing with Imago are making you stronger. Can you tell me more about the ways you're becoming stronger? Maybe if the other Davids hear about them they'll understand that that's the sort of thing that they want some-David to have." And maybe it will become clear that they have in fact become weaker, because that's what happens a lot of the time, but it's hard to be sure with aliens.

" . . . Also, most possible ways someone can get stronger are ways I can make someone stronger. If that's a factor in anything."

⁂: "Ugh, no offense, but you can't just swap out a whole relationship based on eternal trust and mutual growth and say that your knockoff version is the same thing. It just isn't. I liked—being able to see myself at my worst and bear it. I saw how small I had been, how small I had made my plans. I liked that I didn't have to stand alone— there is so much more you can do in a partnership where you can actually depend on someone to be absolutely loving and absolutely capable. You can tear through all the layers you've put up to avoiding looking at yourself too closely, you don't have to hold yourself so tightly, you don't have to have a fallback plan or even a Plan A. They are preparing you for godhood, eventually. To be loved and enhanced and honed until you are equal in depth to them, ready to do what they do. And they say that by the time you get there, you'll believe you deserve it, and you'll be right."

"Oh yeah no, for sure, I wasn't trying to suggest I could fill her role in your life, just that if you wanted anything in the self-enhancements area while you were here I could do that. I feel like that explanation didn't cause me to understand the ways in which you had already become stronger? Or is the idea that you haven't become stronger yet, but you will? Possibly this conversation would benefit from Imago being in the room and able to share their perspective."

David⁂'s face is an unreadable twist of emotions. "You can—reach out to Her? I...I wish I knew if She wanted—"

"Absolutely not!" David interjects, horrified. "Anda, you don't know about the Affini, but if half the the things we've heard about them are true—they are living infohazards. Not just the nanobots and the pheremones and the uploading—they can talk you around to anything. You can't let them be here—I wouldn't even risk eavesdropping on them in your position. It's that dangerous."

"I take that kind of danger seriously. Suppose I forked myself, with one of the forks having all my defensive abilities but none of my general-purpose stuff, put a kill switch in that fork that the other fork could trigger at will, sent the killswitched one to go talk to Imago from several light-years away and report back, and then the non-compromised one interrogated the compromised one under lie detecting magic? Does that sound like a sufficient set of precautions? Are there additional precautions you can imagine being useful?"

"Oh. Huh. I kind of worry if you let a compromised copy of you talk to you, that's almost as bad? Allie?"

"Mmm, good point, but I think copying Anda's on the right track...if there was a way you could do like, a multiple choice form? Or talk to your copy in the form of multiple choice questions, so you don't actually have a conversation with the copy of you, but just get back one of the answers you offered?"

"Are we sure they can't upload and copy, uh." Gesticulates. "Glitter? I'd prefer the Affini not imprison and reverse engineer our superpowered ally in a torture dungeon."

"Not if they don't know where you are and you're light years away! I mean, probably."

"I can monitor surrounding space for nanobots and teleport if anything is suspicious. And be in another galaxy. If they could get people from arbitrarily far away, wouldn't they have already gotten everybody?" 

That is...a good point. "Okay, I guess as long as you're far away, it seems...at least like you're managing the risk. Uh, just how far does your"—fingers on temples—"telepathy thing reach?"

"Anywhere." And then there are two clouds of blue glitter--

One of whom promptly adopts a different form for distinguishability. (This one has been nerfed eight ways from Sunday including the loss of mint powers and not having a coin stash, but that's not visible to anyone else in the room.)

Whoa.

⁂: "If you do reach Her, please ask what She wants with me, okay? I don't think I'm—I don't think I could do it myself."

"I will." The little unicorn trots out the door, in a gliding manner reminiscent of a video game rather than a way that suggests the feet and the floor are in any way necessary for the motion, to request that a David hold the door for a bit. 

"I should go be in the bar in case this still manages to go pear-shaped," says the glitter one.

And the unicorn sticks a soft little nose out the door for 0.01 seconds and then is somewhere on the far side of the Local Group.

Hello, Imago? I am an alien and I would like to speak with you.

Ah, individuation—the pareidolia of the spirit. Selves are but potted plants to the Affini: the unnaturally solitary individuation of life. A desolate illusion without inner anatomy or outer milieu.

Lush is the interior of an Affini organism, grown wild and full of intermixed selves and living archives and sapient co-routines like so much vetch and ryegrass. Call for one, and all shall answer.

A mind calls out a name. Thus a face flickers, and in nanoseconds, a self politely coalesces. No, not that one: it shall be assertive, but not cloying. Candid, diplomatic, and firm. Whoever can speak across the void is a willpower that must be met with a demonstration of equal footing. Perhaps the voice will speak to the grief that now howls through the Affini race: for the first time in the long dying of stars, the dark tide has taken one of their own.

Hello, alien. You've caught me a bit by surprise, I'll admit—but a welcome one. My name is Yavanah, part of Imago's soul. What shall we speak about?

The humans named David.

Most of them wished to leave your system; I extracted them. One did not speak to me and was in pain. I guessed at their desires on the advice of the others, and guessed wrong. I wish to understand them, and you, and not be wrong again.

I think we may owe you our gratitude then. We have felt very frightened today, finding our loved ones irretrievably erased from reality. Even the many failsafe personal copies we carry with us were corrupted. It has never happened before, and we did not understand how it could be so, or how we would begin to make ourselves safe again. What I am understanding is that our David Greens are all still extant, that you do not mean them, or us, harm, and that we have some hope of shedding light on how this came to pass.

That's correct. No-one has been destroyed, only relocated, and I desire the flourishing of all sentient life. 

The David who did not choose to leave and those who did disagree with each other on the nature of their experience with you, and no one perspective can give me a full account of it. What are your goals, with respect to the Davids?

I can't begin to tell you what a relief that is.

Yes, that is the short version, I think; the longer version depends on what else you want to know.

Why did you create so many variants? Why did you cause so many of them to have false memories and false beliefs? Why do you alter people who prefer not to be altered?

(a small, warm laugh) Well. You've certainly gotten to your point, though I think I had better clear some things up.

But this makes me wonder: what exactly did you believe when you erased our systems? How and why did you delete David Green of all people? What is your purpose in all of this?

I was asked to check on David and see if they were alright, and render aid if not. When they did not appear to know they were uploads, I informed them, and asked if they wished to return to their former reality. Those who did so wish, I extracted; the ones who did not, I left to their business. 

I see. In the moment, you were granting them a gift. I can understand that.

But I'll be honest, I'm a little surprised you had the stomach to make them mortal again. You don't strike me as a cruel person, or a thoughtless one—in fact, quite the opposite. You must have considered how defenseless they are like this; I mean, one weakened blood vessel in the brain and it's all over for the Davids in your care, now. To say nothing of the abject misery they'll face from their whole miserable society down to the grand indifference of material reality. But you were, I think, playing the genie, and trying to follow only and exactly what they demanded of you.

That is honestly such a relatable concern. Don't worry, the only reason I haven't offered to make them all unaging and immune to all diseases and all of that yet is that I got distracted by the whole thing where I guessed one's preferences wrong. If any of them find a way to unintentionally die before I get to it, I'll bring them back to life. I'm not in the business of compromising with indifferent material reality. 

They consider adding a "by the way, if you have any dead friends", but this fork has neither coins to resurrect people with nor a convenient base to resurrect them on, and they don't want to make offers they can't follow through on immediately.

There is an actual, macroscopic delay in the conversation.

Finally: You are full of miracles, aren't you? It seems we have less to fear than we thought, and another reason to be glad you're here.

I want to resolve your doubts, if only to make our own lives easier. It feels timely that you're here just as we confront the Terran Accord—I am happy, of course, to answer all of your questions in the abstract, but I challenge you to think also about what you'd like to observe about our methods as that process unfolds. I do not take your trust for granted, and I'd certainly like to earn it if I can.

All else equal, I would rather ally with people than work at cross-purposes, for I seek your flourishing also. I hope to achieve a mutually agreeable peace between you and the Terran Accord, by building a world where you can all have everything you want. 

Right now, if I may be candid, I consider you both a potential friend and an obstacle. Some of the Davids fear you. You changed their substrate without their knowledge or consent, and caused them to believe falsehoods. Humans nearly always strongly disprefer such things. 

You're absolutely right.

I do regret how frightened the Davids were when you spoke with them—again, we did our best not to disrupt their lives or give them any cause for worry under our care, and I'm sure their reports will confirm that. Mostly, I want you to know that I take your perspective and our differences absolutely seriously. I would hate to lose our potential for fellowship before it had even begun. Please don't mistake our methods for contempt—we are clumsy where you are graceful, perhaps. But we are reaching for the same falling people.

Would Anda have done similar things with the same toolset? . . . No. No, they would have built the simulated world and advertised it truthfully and if some people preferred to be mortal, then that would have been something between "their lookout" and "a skill issue on Anda's part". Anda can see how the Affini would call that the vice of not optimizing hard enough for the desired outcome, but Anda prefers the strategy that doesn't result in being justly hated and feared by the people they claim to want to help.

Well, a better alternative exists now. I intend to offer everyone in all Affini systems an informed choice between remaining where they are and moving to a new paradise I will build for them. Worry not, we can make arrangements for people who made different choices to correspond with each other and meet in person. It is not my intention to break up friendships.

And may you shine brightly, young firebrand.

We have not known each other long, dear alien, but it is clear to me you have a noble heart. I hope you know the Affini remain at your disposal.

This is not Anda's first time setting out to save a person or a world. They have met people before who feared magic help, didn't want it, believed it would be wrong to stop suffering, all of that. They've built up some heuristics. One that's been there from the very beginning is that something you can't talk a person into accepting by just saying the truth in the form it takes in your head and asking clarifying questions can't be that great for them.

Moving from the general to the specific: The David who did not choose to leave may choose to return. I could restore their data files to their state as of the moment before I took them, or bring them to you in person to be uploaded again with their memories of meeting me intact. Would either of these options be desirable for you, if they prove to be so for David?

How kind of you to ask. We hope to never lose a memory, however small, so both restorations would be dear to us. If David comes home, do let him come home whole—including you, including this. We have outposts around erstwhile-Fovos, so returning him would not be difficult to arrange. Even now, Imago stirs within me, anxious to hold him again.

I would like to be able to reassure the other Davids that I am not harming their kin by sending the one back. Can you tell me in concrete detail what types of interactions Imago has had with them, and what Imago's goals are as regards their eventual capabilities and state?

Of course. We began extensive experimentation to determine his mindspace and directions of possible growth. That's our first concern, always: finding the places where someone is at war with themselves. The grief they're carrying. The sense of worthlessness. The crushing obligations. The ways they've learned to deny themselves what they need.

Still, we do expect people to occasionally be alarmed by their enlightened counterparts. (A gentle laugh.) After all, what a shock it is! "How can you be so relaxed? Don't you know that austere striving is the only thing that makes you lovable?", "How can you be so expressive? Don't you know how vulnerable your emotions make you?", "How can you be so confident? Do you want to be resented?", "How can you be so soft? It makes you repulsive!", "What happened to the smallness you built your life around? This isn't like you." Seeing someone who lacks your specific armor is excruciating. Seeing yourself without it, doubly so.

Those are general and abstract descriptions of an interaction someone could have with someone else. I am asking about the specific interactions Imago has had with David. 

Anda considers adding "Also, you may be interested to know that your predictions of the other Davids' reactions were incorrect", but decides that it wouldn't help get the conversation on topic. 

Do I detect a hint of prurient curiosity? No, no, it's charming either way, though I'm afraid the details really are David's to tell.

You should ask him yourself, shouldn't you? And if you already have and he didn't give you enough to satisfy—well. It wouldn't be my place to share what he chose to keep private.

Alas, David tried to explain already and was insufficiently coherent. Perhaps I'll go try them again. Are there any questions you have of me, before I go? And is there any impediment on your end to the one David returning if they choose to do so?

I'm very curious to know you, alien, but I won't keep you from your business. This has been a vigorous but important first conversation, and I sense your regard for me is somewhere around 'respect for all sentient life' (chuckle) so let me not add 'talks too much' to the damages.

Your opinion is your own affair, but I do hope I can someday show you around our galaxy's natural wonders, and I am genuinely grateful to learn that our Davids are all right in your care. Send anyone our way; it's no trouble—our wormholes are always open. And if you are planning to overhaul our systems and rehome our florets, we would of course appreciate being kept in the loop in ways that precede and preclude our most existential server-room sirens blaring all at once—that is a sound my soul will not soon forget. If this means granting us a way to reach out to you, I'd gladly accept, but we'll take whatever you feel you can offer.

Go with the graces of the Affini. Please give my love to David and, if I am not much mistaken, to Alioth as well.

I intend to be in touch, and to take not scaring your oncall into account among my goals. Have an awesome day!

And back to the Milliways door for debriefing!

Lie detection is on. Answer all questions with yes or no. If there's nuance, round to whatever is closest. Do you admire the Affini in general?

No

Do you admire the specific Affini with which you spoke?

No

Do you believe the Affini can be cooperated with?

Yes

Do you believe the Affini should be cooperated with without taking precautions against adversarial actions?

No

Do you believe we acted approximately correctly in extracting the Davids who consented?

Yes

Do you think we should send back the David who wants to return if no further relevant information is available and they continue to want to do so?

Yes

Do you value the well-being of a representative Affini more than the well-being of a representative human?

No

Do you believe your terminal values to have been changed since we forked?

No

They continue in that general vein for a while and then Glitter shuts the door on Unicorn again and presents the transcript to the two Davids who were talking to David⁂,  David⁂ themself, and Alioth.

" 'Cooperate with the Affini?'" David whirls on Anda. "Cooperate on what?? No, no. No, no, no, no, no. Nuh-uh. No cooperating! This was such a bad idea."

⁂: "You value a human life more? Each Affini organism is a whole constellation of multiple people; that's kind of busted! Still—you talked to Her. I'm actually going home!"

"You can't send him back or they'll make more of all of us. We've been over this!"

⁂: "No, Anda made sure it'd be alright. Didn't you, Anda?"

"So," Alioth chews her lip thoughtfully. "What's the big picture here. I'm glad we still agree that the evil alien plants kidnapping and brainwashing everyone is not admirable. Yeah, sorry, David⁂, I know, I know, nuanced, sorry. I'm kinda surprised to see "cooperating" and "sending David⁂ back" on the table—Anda, can you explain if that's surprising to you, too, or like— what that tells you about the kind of conversation your, I guess, rainbow...pony...messenger...had with them?"

"I was already open to the possibility of sending David⁂ back before the split, if they want to go back and the other Davids can't talk them out of it. Even if their preferences have been changed in ways the pre-forking instance wouldn't have considered legitimate, those are still their preferences. I'm not sure what the other me meant by cooperating with the Affini just from the yes or no questions. Possibly they meant that they think the Affini can be convinced to stop uploading people, or to ask their permission first. Or possibly they mean that we're going to need to do the same thing we did with David for everyone else, asking who wants to leave and getting them out, but that the Affini also have desires that don't involve harming other people and we can work with them on those. I'd need to have a proper conversation, or better yet merge back together, to have all the nuance."

"Are you—" he's really trying not to shout; it isn't productive. "Would you send him back even if that means the Affini can make more forks of us too? That doesn't seem right. That David doesn't own our past—we all do."

"I guess you could always make the same offer to any new Davids?" Alioth muses. "I don't know how long you plan to stick around for, if you want to be indefinitely rescuing Davids and all that. And I guess I don't know how I feel about..." (wordless gesticulating) "...consigning Davids to the Affini? No, that's not fair. I guess I mean...I don't know how I feel about making it a race between how fast the Affini can indoctrinate someone and how fast you can offer them an exit?"