This Is How You Lose the Time War

I summarize: It’s been too long since my last letter.

Strand 233’s Atlantis was not the most offensive of the brood, and I spent little enough time there. Joke as I might, I see the value. Humans need marks to strive for—but imperfect systems decay. So we build them ideals. Change agents climb upthread, find helpful strands, preserve what matters, and let what doesn’t fall to dust: mulch for the more perfect future’s seed.

Mrs. Leavitt suggests relying on metaphors one’s correspondent—that’s you, I think?—will find meaningful. I confess I don’t entirely know what’s meaningful to you. I fall back on assumptions: seeds and grass, growing things. It verges on stereotype. And when you write me, you write in furnace and in flame.

You ask about hunger.

Y

ou ask, in particular, about my hunger.

The short answer: no.

The longer answer: I don’t think so?

We sate needs before they strike. In this body, an organ (a designed, implanted, rigorously tested organ) seated somewhere above my stomach registers the moment my metabolism requires fuel and stops the lizard-brained old subsystems that would make me keen and irritable and blunt my thoughts—all those tricks Dame Evolution plays to make us hunters, killers, seekers and finders and gorgers. I can disable the organ when I must, but it’s so much more stable to receive a status report than to feel weak.

But the hunger you describe—that blade jutting from the skin, the weathering as of a hillside often struck by storm, the hollowness—it sounds beautiful and familiar.

When I was a girl, I loved reading. An archaic pastime, I know; the index and download are faster, more efficient, offering superior retention and acquisition of knowledge. But I read, antique volumes handed down and fresh-replicated books: How strange to uncover things in sequence! And so I read a comic book once, about Socrates. In the comic book, he was a soldier—he was, that part’s true, I asked him—and one night, as his fellows lay down to sleep, he started thinking. He stood, immobile, lost in thought, until the dawn—at which instant he found the answer to his question.

It all seemed very romantic to me at the time. So I left my pod and wandered upthread and far away, far from the chatter and the mutual observation. I found a hilltop on a small world, breathable but barren, and I stood there like Socrates in the comic book, lost in thought, weight on one foot, and I did not move.

The sun set. The stars rose. (They are a rose, right? Or something? Dante said that.) I realized that as my ears grew used to the silence, I could still hear the others: Our chatter swarmed the heavens; our voices echoed from the stars. This was not how Socrates stood, or Li Bai or Qu Yuan either. My isolation, my experiment, had caused a small sensation among those who cared for me, and for whom I cared, and that sensation spread. Lenses and eyes turned upon me.

I was, I think, thirteen.

I received suggestions: philosophy textbooks, meditation guides, offers of practice and alliance. They crowded round. Whispers in my ears: Are you okay? Do you need help? You can talk to us. You always can.

There were tears. Other organs bind that process too, weeping—they keep our eyes clear and minds sharp, but chemistry is chemistry; cortisol, cortisol.

It feels harder to write than it should. It feels easier to write than it should, as well. I’m contradicting myself. The geometers would be ashamed.

I sent them away.

Each being’s entitled to her privacy, so I refused to let them see me. I was the only person on that tiny rock, and I made the world go dark.

Wind blows. High places grow cold at night. Sharp rocks hurt my feet. For the first time in thirteen years I was alone. I, whatever I was, whatever I am, tumbled first up, into the stars, then down to the broken land. I dug into the soil. Night birds called; something like a wolf, but solitary and larger, with six legs and double-banked eyes, padded past.

The tears dried.

And I felt lonely. I missed those voices. I missed the minds behind them. I wanted to be seen. That need dug into the heart of me. It felt good. I’m not certain how to compare this to something you would know, but, imagine a person melded to a Thing, an artificial god the size of mountains, built for making war in the far corners of the cosmos. Imagine that great weight of metal all around her, pressing her down, giving her strength, its hoses melding with her flesh. Imagine she shears the hoses off, steps out: frail, sapped, weak, free.

I was light, hollowed, hungry. The sun rose. I found no revelation. I’m not Socrates. (I know Socrates, I served with Socrates, and you, senator . . . But I digress.) But I walked on, from that place to another, and from that to another in turn, until, years later, I came home.

And when Commandant found me, slid inside me, said, there’s work for those like you, I wondered if all Agents were like me. They weren’t—I found that later. But we’re all deviant in our different ways.

Is that hunger? I don’t know.

No friends, though? Blue! That’s not at all what I would have thought. I don’t know—I suppose we see you all curling around campfires singing old struggle songs.

Have you been lonely?

I hope the tea’s well. Good? Well. I’ll look for you next in a more public forum.

Yours,

Red