“All right, then,” Shria said. Ze helped Fift off the table, brushed off zir shift, and offered an arm for support. “Pom’s been sending me frantic messages for the last ten minutes. Let’s go impress some Midwives.”

Fift swallowed as they crossed the room to the door. “Yeah, because I’ve been so great at that lately.”

“You didn’t have me by your side then, comrade,” Shria said. “Now you do.”

The door dilated, and Fift took a deep breath.

Shria squeezed zir shoulder. “Showtime,” ve said, and they stepped through, into the wildfire.

Interlude

Personal Essay

“The Unraveling and Me”

by

Ruich Milva Snedic of name registry Startled Pastry 23

14-year-old Vail

submitted to the automated agents of the Fertile Surprise/​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Inner Znep Neighborhood Schooling Interdependency

This essay is about the Unraveling, however I am not supposed to just repeat what my agents tell me about the Unraveling, but, instead, bring my own thoughts and feelings to the fore.

First, I am going to talk about what it is, to set the stage, and then there will be feelings.

The Unraveling is more than one thing. First, there is “the Unraveling,” which was a performance by the Cirque Fantabulous six years ago. I was eight at the time and I remember it very well, because afterwards the feed went out and my parents were scared.

The performance is on the feed, so you can look it up any time. (I’m watching it now for research. Honestly, it seems pretty silly and over the top, but back then everyone was really amazed, I guess.) After the performance, everything goes blank. You can’t look up what happened. Your agents can’t tell you about it. You just have to remember it yourself.

Nonetheless, everybody remembers where they were that day.

The Feed Went Down! That’s how everybody thought about it then. The Feed Went Down!! With capital letters and exclamation points! Nowadays feed outages are pretty common, so for someone my age it’s weird that they made such a big deal of it. But this was the first big one, so that is why. Everyone freaked out and didn’t even know how to use local caches. There’s practically nothing recorded from that incident.

My own memories of that time are super clear. I remember everything my parents said. Rushing back home and hearing the noise of the crowds. There were some green, red, blue, yellow, orange, and aquamarine balls that had fallen off a byway and gotten stuck in the sticky invisible web between the habitations. Just hanging there like they were floating. That’s not on the feed at all, it’s only in my head, but that makes it special. It’s like it’s more a part of me than anything on the feed.