Anomie.Intralogue.01

“What the hell are you reading?” Olivia glanced over Kade’s shoulder at the thin stack of A4 pages, skimming briefly. “Are those our names?”

“Yeah, there’s this Alter on LN0333 who wrote a book about us awhile back.” Kade nodded.

“Do we…know her?”

“No, don’t think so.”

“Oh. So…powers, clearly?”

“Must be. Local Network clairvoyance or something in that realm? She got most of the main beats right, with the whole…Seven situation. Bit of artistic license on my interiority but…y’know…it’s not every day you get to read fan-fiction about yourself, so…”

“Is that from the book?” Olivia nodded down at the pages in Kade’s hands.

“No, this is some story stuff I printed off from her blog.” Kade shrugged. Olivia raised an eyebrow, craning her head over to get a better look at the words.

“So, reading between the lines, you…went to LN0333, found a computer with a printer, and physically printed stuff off of a blog?” Olivia raised an eyebrow.

“Easier than having to go there every time I feel like looking it up.” Kade rationalised.

"Why not download it as a PDF?"

"Cause paper feels nice?"

“You’re so weird, Kadence.”

“You want me to bring up the Otherside Picnic thing, Olivia?” Kade asked.

“I…really don’t, actually.”

“How many seasons is it into now, on Sophie’s world?”

“Five…” Olivia sighed.

“Enjoying it?”

“So much. The version on our worlds only got one season, and it kinda sucked, but on Sophie’s world it’s a really faithful adaptation of the light novels - ”

“ - You weeb.”

“Fuck off. It’s socially awkward, traumatised gay girls moving between worlds, it’s - ”

“ - Genuinely shocking you don’t get enough of that in your day-to-day life, truly.” Kade observed. “Have you told Sophie that you mostly visit for the Anime and not cause you want to actually see her, yet?”

“That’s not…entirely the case. She’s…fine.”

“I mean, she’s objectively not. Helios really did a number on her.”

“You know what I mean. She’s…better than poor, as company goes. And one of us has to check up on her, y’know? Make sure she’s not looking to go all lone wolf about the…what was it? Dozen cranial abscesses they left her with?”

“And if you get to binge some top tier Yuri for your troubles, everybody wins?”

“Exactly.” Olivia nodded.

“It’s kinda not okay, Liv.” Kade noted.

“Yeah, it’s…kinda not, is it?”

“Nah. It’s fine. But see? You’ve got your hobbies and I’ve got mine. We listen and we don’t judge.” Kade asserted lyrically, smiling to herself.

“What’s it about, anyway? This…Alter-blog?”

“Currently? It’s doing this fictional account of Bel - that’s the Alter - accidentally having manifested versions of all of us on her world, and they hang out as a little group, and there’s some ‘being’ - not Seven - doing an apocalypse.” Kade paused, looking up and into the middle distance. “Fuck. I hope it’s fictional.”

“I wouldn’t overthink it.” Olivia shrugged. “It’s probably fine.”

“It’s…kind of depressing, honestly? A bit overwrought?”

“Sounds like us, yeah.”

“I feel like she’s just doing kind of a…free-association thing. It’s a bit all over the place. And it sort of…jumps around quite a lot, narratively? Like heavy interiority, to ‘oh shit, apocalypse’, to you and her raiding a bottle-o, to hanging with the Alters, to the copy-versions of me and Seven doing team-up shit - “

“ - Well that’s out of character - “

“ - So out of character, for both of us.”

“Especially since she’s…y’know…dead.”

“Well…yeah.” Kade flinched slightly, before continuing rapidly: “Anyway, it’s like she’s just writing what she wants to write - throwing words at a page to see what happens - without worrying too much about structure, or heavy versioning. Which I respect. It’s kinda…jazz.”

“Do you wanna start a blog?”

“Fuck no, are you kidding me? Can you imagine? She’s like us; she can’t not do the raw-and-unfiltered thing. And I’m reading it like ‘fuck, I like this, but if it were me it’d make me wanna curl up and die’.”

“What doesn’t make you wanna curl up and die, you listless little hermit crab?”

“Well yeah. I guess that’s in the vicinity of my point? I wanna be seen, not perceived. And I honestly don’t know what’d be worse: putting myself out there and no one reading it, or putting myself out there and people reading it wrong. Either way, fuck that shit.”

“Well, I hope she’s enjoying it at least. Wish I had the time to get back to doing some writing.”

“Oh please. Like you couldn’t find some time. The Helios War is over, everyone’s getting along - ”

“ - You’re clearly going through a major depressive episode, Damien’s on the team now, apparently…Ari, Tash, Sage and Kira think you’re losing it, Cee’s a prisoner, and Maya’s getting…increasingly scary, which isn’t not hot, I guess…Alice and Faith are still avoiding you like the plague because apparently resurrection is ‘tricky’ or whatever - ”

“ - Yeah, exactly. Things’ve settled right down. What’ve you got going on that’s keeping you from churning out some depressing-ass poems?”

“Okay, first - fuck you - and second…I might be…maybe, possibly edging towards…starting to consider the hypothetical possibility of…um…dating someone. That’s soaking up quite a bit of focus.”

“Oh really? Anyone I know?”

“Do you actually know anyone who isn’t either Dawn or an alternate version of you?” Olivia deadpanned.

“No, but the latter is your historical dating pool.” Kade deadpanned right back.

“Fuck you.” Olivia laughed.

“Tell me I’m wrong.” Kade beamed as Olivia launched into her, holding her down into the couch playfully.

“Ka-ade…” Olivia frowned, pausing and holding herself up over Kade, who - now prone - scowled as she reached up to adjust her freshly mussed hair. “Buy me lunch.”

“Yeah…” Kade sighed: “I should probably eat something, too. Get your shit, we’ll go hit a sushi train.”