“So,” Sarah was saying, “we actually went to bed earlier than we had planned that night, because that Scott Pilgrim cartoon kept giving us secondhand embarrassment. Like, collectively. Even Phage couldn’t take it. And it’s not like it’s as bad as sitcoms and romcoms from the oughts. It just triggered us collectively for some reason.”

“Scott is a certified douche canoe,” Erik said.

“I knew that going in, and that it’s kind of the point of the show, because of all the trans blog reviews,” Sarah said. “But I still couldn’t take it. I want to, though. I’m planning on trying again after a bit of a break, if the others are up for it. Or maybe they can just dissociate for me a little bit every day for a while. And I can give them something else in return, like breakfasts.”

“You could just read the comic,” Erik suggested. “I’ve read it, and watched the movie, and the show. And it’s all pretty much the same plot. Just with different presentation. Which does make all the difference, so it should work to try the comic.”

“Huh,” Sarah pondered. “Maybe if I read the comic first, it’ll be easier for us to watch the show afterward.”

“You really want that animation, don’t you?” Erik asked.

“It’s fun to watch,” Sarah said. “And Ashwin seemed to like the style.”

“Speaking of Ashwin and style, what did you do with that map?”

“Scanned it. Put it up on our Patreon. Hung the original on the wall. And then talked about how fake it is,” Sarah said.

“Fake?”

“Yeah,” Sarah drew out the word, smirking.

“So, you’re OK with that.”

“More or less, yeah. It’s such a little thing. And as I just told you, Ashwin proved to us that nem could pull up vivid and really accurate looking exomemories anyway, that night.”

“Right. But nothing you could show me, or,” Erik looked up and waved as they came in, “the Audreys.”

“Actually,” Mill of the Audreys said, “We’re changing our system name. Legal name’s the same, Audrey. But we want a system name that’s different.”

I knew it was Mill just by looking at them. I’ve never met Mill before, but I knew it was them.

Maybe. Maybe I still had Phage’s gift to the Sunspot. But muted to small things like this, like Phage had implied it was experiencing.

“Hey, Mill,” Sarah said, picking up on my thoughts.

Mill looked pleasantly surprised, “You recognized me!”

Sarah smiled, “Ashwin did, actually.”

“Cool.”

“I want to know what name I should call y’all,” Erik said, thumping the table gently with his fist.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mill said, turning to him. “We found this word that is just really, really cool. And it works so well for us, because there are so many of us and sometimes we’re just like this word. Like, what it sounds like but also like what it describes.”

“Yeah?”

“Also, we’re all birds, did you know that?”

“I think I did, Mill,” Erik did his grin. “It’s not like we aren’t super good friends or something, you know.”

“Oh, right,” Mill looked off into the distance for a moment. “Right! Sorry. Probably a bit of amnesia, I don’t front much.”

“The word, Mill. Please,” Erik urged them.

Mill leaned forward and over enunciated the word, nearly biting their lip in the process, and said, “Murmuration,” with a huge, soft, satisfied grin.

“Oh, yeah, that word. That is a great system name,” Erik exclaimed.

Is it really Murmuration they wanted, or Susserration? Sarah thought.

“We’re the Murmuration, hosted by the Audreys,” Mill put their arms akimbo and puffed out their bound chest.

“Wish I could say I had a host,” Erik said.

Mill waved a hand at him and said, “Ah, you don’t need one. Hosts are overrated and kinda assimilationist. Singlet psychologists want systems to have hosts. It just makes sense for us to use the word, because that name is our legal one.”

“There are plenty of systems with actual hosts, Mill,” Erik said cheerfully, but with just enough edge to his voice to point out he was reminding his friend to be fair about diversity.

“True, true, OK,” Mill relented.

Erik nodded our direction and said, “Sarah was just telling me that she and Goreth wrote up a contract as hosts a couple nights ago.”

Mill turned to us and asked, “Really?”

“Yep!” Sarah said. “I know you two can’t afford our Patreon. We really should send you private emails of our updates.”

“Ah, but then what would you have to talk about with us here?” Erik asked.

Sarah held up a finger and squinted at him.

“I’m joking.”

Sarah turned to Mill and the Murmuration, and said, “So, you know we’ve got plans to bring a few more people over from the Sunspot, right?”

Mill let their jaw lie slack for a moment and then nodded, “I’ve heard that, yes.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows, and said, “Maybe a lot of people.”

“Oh. Like a Murmuration a lot?”

Sarah grimaced, still wondering about the word, and said, “I don’t know. We’re still talking about what we need.” The Murmuration had around a hundred and forty members, so maybe that’s what they were talking about, not the sound of a stream or a gigantic flock of birds. “We’re probably going to take it slow at first.”

“Makes sense.”

With Sarah watching the Murmuration, I could see Shelley, Brock, Toris, Charl, Angle, and Vespa start joining Mill in their consciousness. ‘See’ isn’t quite the right word. It wasn’t even like perceiving the Network’s more subtle protocols that are hard to describe in English. But it was like the patterns of something in their face gained layers, and the layers had names in my mind. Or, like, their eyes got crowded. And even those two descriptions are too visually oriented.

“So,” Sarah said. “Long story short, if that’s OK, we wrote up a contract to outline how Phage in particular should help us manage that. And, also, to draw up a new social structure for our system. Because if it’s going to grow, we’re going to need it.”

“Very cool.”

“I’m pretty excited about it. The contract, I mean,” Sarah said. “I’m still apprehensive about getting new members. But Phage is supposed to be vetting them, getting them to look at the contract and agree to it, and warning us before they come over.”

“Even better.” Mill held up a finger. “I should go get a drink. Support the place.”

We had one cup of tea, since it was getting to be the end of the month and Sarah and Goreth were down to their last bits of change before the next Patreon deposit.

“Do you want anything?” Mill asked.

Sarah furrowed her brow and said, “I can’t afford it.”

“No, I mean, on me.”

“You can’t afford it any better than me,” she said.

“I can today,” Mill said. Several of their headmates seemed to nod behind the mask of their face as well.

“OK. Thank you,” Sarah relented. “A molasses cookie.”

“Got it,” Mill said cheerfully, and headed toward the counter.

With hooded eyes, Erik glanced at Sarah meaningfully, and then asked, “So, how about that disability stuff?”

“Please don’t nag,” Sarah shot back.

“Sorry, I just.” Erik stopped to reorder his words. “It’s your Medicaid on the line, and I’m worried. I want to not worry for you.”

“Then don’t?”

“I can’t not,” Erik said. “It’s my gender.”

Sarah blew a single snicker out her nose, and said, “OK. To get your mind off it. We’re sticking to my plan. We’ve managed to keep up with each step of my checklist every day.”

“Oh, hey, that’s good!” Erik said. “See, if you tell me about that kind of thing, I can compliment you! Give you endorphins!”

“Sure, sure. It’s actually the contract that’s helping, too, though.”

“That’s good! How?”

“Ashwin and Phage are helping me read the paperwork and fill it out. Phage is even making some of the phone calls we need to make,” Sarah said.

“You’re letting it do that?” Erik asked. Then his whole expression went slack and his head slowly tilted up as his eyes tracked something on the other side of the room.

We looked, though Sarah, being an old friend of Erik’s, felt she knew what was going on and didn’t expect to see anything.

Except that we did.

Stepping through the wall itself were three duplicates of Erik, wearing the exact same clothes.

In a quiet voice, Erik said, “Oh, don’t worry about it, Sarah. It’s just my buddies.” His headmates. “I guess they’re going to join us today. Hope that’s OK.”

Sarah took a while to respond, but ended up saying, while watching Erik’s counterparts walk across the cafe toward us, weaving between tables and patrons, “Oh, of course it is, Erik. No worries. But. Uh. I can see them this time.”

“What did you say?” Erik asked almost lazily, like he was focusing more on watching than talking.

“A couple weeks ago, when we first met Ashwin, you were about to say something about shared hallucinations,” Sarah said.

“I was?” Erik asked. “I might do that.”

“Well, I think we’re having one.”

Erik brought his attention back to the table, and looked right at Sarah, “Really.”

Sarah nodded, still tracking the movement of Erik’s buddies.

“OK. Cool. Oh,” Erik said, bringing his loose fist up to his mouth. “Let’s be casual about this, please? And maybe talk about it more when we’re away from here? Like, when you’re talking to any of them, face me. I don’t think I’m ready for even Aunti Zero’s to witness this. But we’ve got to talk about this later. Please!”

“Good deal,” Sarah said. “Can do. Definitely talk about this later.”

I could feel Goreth coming to the front to have a look, too, but Sarah was already turning our head to focus on Erik.

Erik’s buddies were also already sitting down in chairs that hadn’t been there earlier.

“But, I do need to know,” Erik said. “How is this happening?”

“I think it’s science fiction stuff,” Goreth said.

“I’ll take it,” Erik said. Then in a distinctly lower voice, leaning forward conspiratorially, “That’s neat. OK. Ground rule, though. If our conversation at this table starts to get weirder than usual, or you start to see anything particularly alarming, I’m really going to need you to try to remind yourself that these are hallucinations, and that other people can’t see them.”

The other Eriks all nodded solemnly.

“Try not to let on that we’re having,” he gestured around at the table top, looking down at it, “this.”

“Got it,” Goreth said.

“Thank you,” Erik replied. “In fact, let’s fill the Murmuration in later, too. Just not now.”

“Really?”

“I’m nervous.”

“OK.”

“I’ve been through this, though. So we can do this. Just follow my lead. Oh, and remember, this is unusual. What you’re seeing is kinda unique to me. We’re all unique.”

“We will follow your lead,” I said. “We will assume nothing.”

Having heard at least three of us agree with him, he visibly relaxed.

Just in time for Mill to return with their drink and Sarah’s cookie.

The Eriks had left Mill an actual seat to sit in, the one that had been there when we’d first sat down.

“I’m wondering if this talk about Phage and Ashwin and all joining your system has got me a little more stressed than I realized,” Erik said.

“How so?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know,” Erik said. “I kind of wish it was happening to me, I guess. But I’m just grasping at possible triggers.”

“Triggers?” Mill asked innocently.

“I’m feeling my psychosis coming on,” Erik said more quietly.

“Ah,” Mill nodded and tilted their head down to focus on their drink. A signal that they wouldn’t press further.

“I love you,” Erik told them.

Mill looked up and beamed, and said, “I love you too!”

“So,” Sarah said. “We probably have more people at this table than we’ve ever had before.”

Erik chuckled.

Mill turned their grin at her, and silently giggled.

Incoming, Phage said.

Sarah frowned and growled under her breath, “Phage, that’s not the kind of heads up I was expecting. Sorry. I should have specified. Advanced warning and an ETA would be nice.”

My apologies for not anticipating, Phage replied. I will do better next time.

“What’s up?” Erik asked.

Sarah focused on the cookie and its wrapper for a moment, making a show of tearing it open with both hands, then said as she started to very carefully break the cookie up into fifths, “It looks like we’re about to have our next visitor.”

Erik sat up more straight and turned his head sideways at her, like he was composing himself to be more presentable, queer finery and all, but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know who it will be,” she said.

He slumped back down into his chair and broke a smile again, “OK. Well, let them introduce themselves, of course.”

“Of course.”

After a while of everyone eating and drinking their food and drinks, waiting for the arrival of our new headmate, Sarah spoke up again.

“This is a lot like how they depict it in the movies, isn’t it?” she asked.

I could tell she was asking Erik about the hallucinated headmates, but she said it so generally to the air that Mill thought it was to the table. Even as Erik nodded cautiously and subtly.

“What? The ‘sci-fi stuff’?” Mill asked.

Sarah caught herself, and then said, “yeah, actually.”

“It sorta is, isn’t it,” Mill agreed. “Though, I mean, like, they get it wrong about plurality a lot. But that’s just a limit of the medium. How do you depict headmates talking to each other?”

“Well, for me, it’s pretty accurate, sometimes,” Erik said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, right, yeah,” Mill said. “Sorry. But, yeah. The sci-fi stuff, getting contact in a way that’s basically telepathy, and you can’t prove it to anyone else, and it’s infuriating? Totally like the movies, too.”

Sarah found herself staring out the window of the shop in shock. She’d realized something regarding what Mill had said.

“Can we call you the Donnies?” one of the other Eriks asked. But it came out of Erik’s actual mouth, out loud, too, apparently.

Mill just shook their head amiably, taking Erik seriously but apparently not being offended by it. Not picking up on Erik’s irritated tone, either. “We’re the Murmuration,” Mill murmured.

“Fine. Sorry.”

“‘S OK,” Mill said. “I get it. We’re pretty oblivious sometimes, and that was funny, really.”

“Don’t sweat it, Mill,” Erik said. “Gonna fill you in on something later, when I’m more coherent and friendly. It’s cool. Sorry about the Donnie crack.”

This conversation between Erik and Mill felt stressful, and Sarah wanted to intervene to make sure her friends were OK with each other, even after Erik had apologized. But she was also trying to figure out the words to use to interject about her experiences and what it meant if they were real real. And the subject of the conversation had already moved past that, and she was stuck.

She hated that feeling so much.

Eh, she was among peers. These were her best friends. She could just bring the subject up.

They’d get it.

She started to just wait for a beat she could speak in.

“Donnie was my favorite character in that movie, which I think is why we have a Donnie,” Mill said.

Erik smiled genuinely and said, “That’s the best!”

“Ooh, Brock’s here,” Mill exclaimed, finally noticing their own headmate.

Sarah chose to speak in the momentary pause after that shift in subject, and started saying, “I think I’m actually experiencing telepa –”

And that’s when we were hit with the incoming member.

Suddenly, we were all Rräoha, and we were completely discombobulated. In public.

In the presence of a friend who was experiencing an episode of their psychosis, and another friend who didn’t know what was going on.

It’s probably fortunate that the switch had somehow broken our perception of Erik’s hallucinations, however they were happening in the first place.

It might have been one too many confusing things for Rräoha.

As it was, it was not good.

—

Everything felt jarringly wrong.

Limbs were missing.

Gem was sitting on gems ass in a way that should have been impossible.

The light was off.

The spin was off.

The smells were weird.

Rräoha’s mouth felt small and crowded.

All of these terrible sensations and realizations were almost overshadowed by the sudden burst of sound. The incomprehensible babbling of creatures in clothing surrounded gem and assaulted gem in a way that gem could feel on gems naked, naked skin. The skin that wasn’t covered by strange, black, irritating textiles.

Gems ears felt naked.

Rräoha recalled then that Mau had warned gem about this. But it had not been warning enough.

Gem had felt the falling of sliding out of gems dying body on ʔetekeyerrinwuf, and then, this. Instantly.

There’d been no transition. No feeling of voluntary movement. Like having been pushed backward into a freezing pond instead of diving headfirst into it gemself.

And that’s all gem could remember of before. That shocking change. Everything gem had been experiencing and thinking before it had happened was gone from gems mind, and all gem knew was that it had all been there just a moment before.

And gems name, Rräoha. ‘The Shouted Backwards’. When gem had first coined that name from ancient root words, gem had had no clue that gem would experience it as an event so viscerally.

It was a Monster’s name. A word that no one used that made no sense and left people bemused and confused. It sounded like a growl and a laugh, which had suited gem so perfectly, everyone complimented gem on the choice even if they were initially put off by it.

Gem’s name had been part of the fun of being alive, and that’s what a name should be.

Eyes clenched shut, bowing gems head, hunching shoulders that made no sense, Rräoha mentally gripped this kernel of identity and memory and tried to crawl back into it.

Someone’s naked hand pressed, unsolicited, against Rräoha’s naked, naked right arm, and gem flinched back into the horrible new world.

Amidst the dull roar of cacophonic vocalizations, a phrase of meaning untangled itself at gem, “You are you.”

Somehow, gems mouth said something that meant, “I don’t think I am.”

“Are you alright? Can I get you anything? On the house? Or, just a glass of water? I think I have medicine behind the counter if it’s a brain agony or your reproductive organs,” a different voice said.

How was gem understanding these words? Was this like the wordless thoughts the Children spoke of when using their neural terminals? Was this just a Network space, crafted by some malicious Crew member? A prank? A prank that Mau was part of?

It didn’t make sense.

The hand was still on gems arm, and it shouldn’t be.

Another hand touched gems left shoulder, startlingly but gently. Jarring. Wrong. But reassuring afterward.

“Hey. Are you OK?”

Gem opened gems alien eyes and looked up, turning gems weird, wrong head to see what colors of light gem could fathom from the direction of that sound with meaning.

One of the creatures with clothing was standing beside gem, with wide eyes and painted lips. Kate.

How did gem know her name?

“Think…” gems mouth made sounds like all those around gem, with meaning, too. “Think slowly making sense again things. Thank you.”

“OK,” Kate said. “OK. Just let me know if you do need anything. OK? You’re family here. We want to take care of you.” She removed her hand from Rräoha’s shoulder, after a gentle squeeze.

No reasonable person would have made that physical contact in the first place without asking. It had frightened and infuriated Rräoha at first. Both hands on gem had done that. But gems impulse to lash out had been absorbed, diffused by this confusing body, and replaced with warmth.

Rräoha found gemself, for the first time, missing the presence of an unsolicited physical contact.

The head nodded, and the mouth said, “thank you.”

“Ashwin?” the owner of the other hand asked.

The confusing imagery of visuals shifted as the head wheeled toward that speech, and then the head shook back and forth briefly, and the mouth said, “No.”

These were Rräoha’s actions and reactions. Gem was actually choosing to do them, but the disconnect from the body and the confusion over being able to understand this alien language made it feel like gem was watching it happen from a distance.

“Rräoha,” gem forced gems mouth and tongue to pronounce clearly. “Name is Rräoha me.”

Let the vessel speak for you, Mau’s voice filled gems mind and comforted gem like a storm, a wave on the shore. It knows this language. And we’ll feed you memories as you need them.

Rräoha took a deep breath and blinked.

There were two people sharing the table with gem. They looked so similar, and yet their subtle differences were enough to tell them apart. One was tall and skinny and lightly colored. And the other was short and lumpy and dark.

And they wore badly made clothing that also looked similar but different enough. The tall one in blues and the short one in blacks and shades of red and maroon.

The shorter, darker one was still leaning over with their hand on gems arm. It was OK now, though.

Erik.

“My name is Rräoha,” gem repeated, somehow making more sense, but with the word order all wrong. “And my pronoun is gem. I’m a Monster of ʔetekeyerrinwuf, and I don’t know where I am or what’s happening.”

“Maybe we should go for a short walk,” Erik said. “You’ve got your good shoes on, at least.”

“Are you sure?” the other one, the Murmuration, asked.

“I want to get outside, at least,” Erik said. “I feel like a crowd in here.”

“One of the tables out there?”

“Sure.”

The Murmuration started to stand up, using a stick to help them do so. “Rräoha might need help with that cane, if they’re experiencing amnesia,” they said.

“I got it,” Erik said, getting up himself.

The body did have its memories. Or did they come from the others who were supposed to be here with Mau?

I use the name Phage here, came the thought. It means the same thing, but they understand it.

“Here. Rräoha? Here’s your cane,” Erik said, standing nearby, holding out a stick that was more ornate than what the Murmuration had. There was the crafted metal head of a beast on the handle. A dragon. Erik continued with instructions, pushing the cane at gem, “Hold it and plant it on the ground for support while you get up. You might need it.”

Rräoha looked at it, making sense of it.

“We’re going to go outside where there are fewer people hanging around us, and we can speak even more freely,” Erik said. “I need it. And I think you do, too.”

“OK,” an affirmative of some sort. Rräoha put gems weirdly naked, clawless hand on the cane’s handle. Gems other right arm, that distressingly wasn’t there, passed through it first.

Gems feet hurt.

A whole lot of the body really hurt.

Especially now that gem was trying to move it.

“I wish that I wasn’t doing this,” gem said.

“I get that,” Erik said. “Every moment of every day.”

But, somehow, the two of them managed it, and Rräoha’s new vessel was standing and making a controlled, three limbed fall toward something that apparently passed for a door.

The supposed door didn’t act like a door. It remained closed as they approached it.

“I’ll come back in and get our drinks once you’re settled out there,” Erik said, then reached for the door and gripped a metal handle that was on one side of it and pulled it open.

And there was so much green on the other side of it. And even more noise.

But, instead of the babbling of people, it was like the sound of the Aft Sea. A white noise that ebbed and flowed as the strangely green needles of what were probably trees rustled in a wind, or as large metal vessels on wheels rolled alarmingly by, riding on a paved substrate that seemed to cover everything where the trees weren’t growing.

Sometimes the white noise was a wooshing sound, the wind, and sometimes it was a roar, like no sound Rräoha had ever heard before. But gem recognized it anyway, as cars.

Cars were like cuttlecrab buggies, but for larger people.

The babbling of the people receded as the door closed on its own.

Rräoha followed gems impulse to avoid looking at the sky, and focused on the paved floor of this world’s Garden, as Erik led gem to a metal frame of a table and an alien chair where the Murmuration was waiting with their beverage.

There were chairs kind of like this on ʔetekeyerrinwuf. It’s just that they weren’t made for people like Rräoha and gem had never been able to sit in them before.

Standing as straight and upright as a tree was itself an unnerving and unsettling thing. But to fall back and sit down right where gems tail used to be was startling.

But it worked.

“I’ll be right back,” Erik said, and then left.

“He’s really the best,” the Murmuration said. “A good man.”

“Hurting all the time like this all people – ?” Rräoha started to say, but stopped, remembering not to push speech but let it happen. The words felt all jumbled when gem tried to order them correctly.

“No,” the Murmuration said. “You’re just lucky that way. One of the few.”

It probably hurts less than it would if I weren’t here, Phage thought. I’m doing what I can to help.

“We both have canes,” Rräoha observed. “Do you hurt?”

“Not like you,” the Murmuration said. “I don’t have the malformed foot or the fibromyalgia, or whatever it is you’re experiencing. Just balance issues and chronic fatigue. Also, I like the style of this one, and it was cheap at the store.” They held their broadly curved, black metal cane up. It had a scale-like pattern carved into it that sparkled in the sunlight.

The sun here was not nearly as bright as on ʔetekeyerrinwuf. But it seemed to be more than enough for these eyes.

The difference, Phage thought, is that the sun here is larger than the world, and a hundred and fifty million kilometers away.

Rräoha had a clear visualization of what that meant as Phage thought it, and fell back into gems chair.

It will be more jarring when the sky is not overcast. But the others will be more awake and you’ll find it easier to bear.

The Murmuration looked over and asked, “So, Rräoha was it?” They did not quite pronounce gems name right, but gem didn’t correct them. They said, “Tell me about yourself. What can you remember?”

“I am a Monster,” Rräoha said.

“Aren’t we all,” Erik said, appearing from the door, holding two cups in his hands and something in a white paper bag tucked into his armpit. “You’re in good company. You came to the right place. We’re all monsters here.”

Neither Rräoha nor Erik knew just how correct Erik accidentally was.

But Rräoha guessed, only it came out wrong, “You don’t have täfri here?”

“Taffy?” Erik asked.

Neural terminal, Phage thought. The word is ‘neural terminal’.

Rräoha tried to lower gems ears, and turned gems head away, and said, “No.”

“Ah,” Erik said, and took a sip from his cup, and pushed the other cup toward Rräoha, leaving it on the table. He sat down in the empty chair that was there.

“Täfri is… neural terminal. You don’t have neural terminals?”

Erik shook his head, close enough to turning it away that Rräoha intuitively understood it as a negative. “No. No one does. That’s not an Earth technology,” he said. “Though I do wish it was.”

“We reject them,” Rräoha said, trying to put a stern tone to gems voice. “We Monsters.”

“Oh?” the Murmuration asked.

As much as there was pain left behind there, pain here, and pain in suddenly missing the familiar, it was reassuring and grounding to think about home while talking about it, so Rräoha let gemself do so.

“The Children who wear them become Crew when they die,” gem said. “And they’re half Crew before that. The Network blends them in ways we Monsters reject.”

These two friendly people stopped moving and stared at gem after gem said that. The Murmuration’s mouth was partially open, as if about to say something, eyes squinted. And Erik was twisting his lips to the side.

Gem took a deep breath, smelling caustic fumes and rotting leaves and birdshit on the wind, and thought about what to say next.

Let it just come out on its own, Phage reminded gem.

“My body came to its end,” Rräoha said, finally. “Mau, Phage, had given me its gift, like with everyone else, so I imagined I might continue in some way afterward. But there was this. I wanted to see this.”

“What were you told about this?” Erik asked.

“I –” gem couldn’t clearly remember. But gem decided to follow Phage’s advice and let the words come out on their own anyway, and as they did then gem remembered it, “I was told I could live, however fleetingly briefly, on a planet. That I could talk to a people we had never seen or even imagined before, without the need to learn their language. Your language. And that I might be especially suited to help with something here.”

Gem was absolutely, utterly bamboozled by the words that came out of gems mouth. How did gem know how to say all that?

“Well,” Erik said, lips pressing together and mouth widening between words. “Welcome to Earth, Rräoha. My name is Erik and my pronouns are he/him.”

“I know. I think I’ve been told,” Rräoha responded.

“We’re the Murmuration over here, they/them,” said the Murmuration.

“Again. I know. Somehow,” Rräoha repeated.

“You sound really different than Ashwin,” the Murmuration said.

If that was a Ktletaccete name, it was an old one that meant Mindful Separation. It was the name of a hero from an old epic poem about plurality and the search for identity. Rräoha had almost taken that name for gemself when gem had decided to be a Monster, because of its meaning. But gem hadn’t, because Rräoha felt more like who gem was.

In any case, Rräoha had never met any Ashwin.

Oh.

Wait.

That was it.

ʔashwin Minbäoni!

The Crew Member who had stepped forward first thing when contact through the Tunnel had been announced.

Rräoha had never met them, but that event was why gem was here, after all.

Gem had watched the proceedings from the shadows of Mau Rro, now that gem remembered it. Gem remembered thinking, I will do that even if I must accept a neural Terminal to do so.

Mau, Phage, had come to speak to gem about it a few days later, as if it had read gems thoughts. It always claimed it couldn’t do that.

“So that’s what it feels like to be a Monster,” I said out loud.

Erik visibly relaxed, then asked, “Is it always going to be like this when one of you shows up?”

“I think it’s kind of fun,” Mill said. “I really love meeting new system members.”

I held up a hand, and closed my eyes, and thought out loud to Rräoha, “I’m sorry I took over so fast there. You called my name, and that sometimes causes a switch. You can have the front back, if you’ll take it.”

I could sense all of the Eriks nodding as I said that. They did not nod in unison. They looked alike, but they were very different people, thinking different thoughts.

Rräoha didn’t stir.

I looked back up at Erik and said, “Well. Since we’re out here now, we should fill the Murmuration in on what’s going on with you and us.”

“Yeh,” Erik said. Then laconically turned his head to face the Murmuration. “I’m all here right now. Being psychotic. It’s tense, but good? Especially now that we’re outside.”

“Oh, yeah. You said that earlier,” Mill said.

“No, but,” Erik said, and then looked at me.

“So, Mill,” I said. “I’m sorry that you’re not experiencing this too, but we’re sharing his hallucination along with him.”

“What do you mean?” Mill asked.

“I can see all the other Eriks, and,” I looked around. “Some of the lurkers and webs he sees, too.”

Erik twitched his glance my direction in amiable askance.

I nodded carefully in human, and said to the Murmuration, “And there’s another thing you might really like, actually.”

The more I talked, the more time I spent co-conscious with Goreth or Sarah, the more naturally words came out of my mouth. And I’d been taking it for granted for the past couple of weeks. But after having just experienced Rräoha’s introduction to being a new member of this system, hearing myself speak English with so much ease, even if still heavily accented, was weird again.

“What’s that?” Mill asked, headmates crowding around in their consciousness with curiosity.

I smiled in as friendly a way as I could devise, and said, “I can see all of you, too. All one hundred and forty-seven of you.”

“That’s – wait. We have five more headmates?” they asked.

“If that’s what that number means, yes,” I said.

“Oh, shit. That’s rad! Thank you!” they exclaimed.

After a beat, Erik said, “Y’all ever get culture shock after our meetings like this? Like, even when this doesn’t happen?”

“I’m always feeling culture shock now,” I said.

“I bet you are!” he responded. “But I’m asking Sarah and Goreth, and the Murmuration as well. We get together here, and we get to be ourselves, for the most part. We share our inworlds with each other. We talk plural shit. And, I mean, I told you the other week about how it is for me, but I’m betting you get this, right? We relax here. We talk about important things. And then we go home and deal with dishes, bills, and rent.”

“And housemates,” Shelley said for the Murmuration.

“And renewing your Medicaid,” Erik gestured at us.

“People on the bus,” Shelley said.

“People on the bus,” Erik repeated.

“Buying groceries,” Brock added.

“Yes, buying groceries. The worst,” Erik agreed.

I thought about how I might add to the conversation. Sarah and Goreth were the Earthlings here, the ones who took care of the mundanities of living in this world, like Erik had just said. But after what had just happened, I couldn’t really feel them. I worried that this was causing another blackout for Sarah. I hoped it wasn’t.

I decided to try to ease her back to the front, to share my own working memories with her, before doing anything like going to bed later in the day, if that didn’t end up happening naturally.

I took a breath, and I said, “If I miss anything, myself, it is watching a sundeath with the cuttlecrabs on the beach.”

Erik squinted at me, “You haven’t seen a sundeath here yet?”

“Sundeath?” Brock asked.

Erik gestured at them, “It’s what happens. It’s a thing.”

“I don’t see how I could,” I said. “The physics are different. The whole process is different. The sun here has five billion years of life left in it.”

“Yeah,” Erik said, eyes and grin widening together. “But when the sun touches the horizon, sometimes the whole world turns into flames! I bet it never did that on the Sunspot! You have to see it.”

And the way he described it, I really wanted to.

But we didn’t get to do that for a while.

Erik wanted to take us out to Cannon beach to experience it, so I could also get to see the ocean. To make it as much like my memories as possible, even if there would be no cuttlecrabs. And that would be an endeavor.

But, also, Rräoha’s arrival started a cascade of consequences that got in the way of it fast. And it got in the way of a whole lot of other things.

The fact that we survived it was a testament to the community Sarah and Goreth had found themselves in, thanks to their friends.