http://liminal-archives-cn.wikidot.com/component:timer-tool
在僻远荒凉之地，一个女人蜷缩在生锈的电脑终端边。从漏风的窗户和遍布墙上的通风口照入的光柱反射出来，终端裸露在外的金属在赭石间闪闪发光。光照亮了充满灰尘的空气，灰尘厚重得使这个女人在进入房间之前在脸上戴了过滤面具。
一天多以前，星星划过圣西西里的海岸。现在，在凉爽的夜风中，在散落一地的食品包装和水瓶的包围中，女人的手指在键盘上飞舞，充血的眼睛盯着屏幕。
这是一次调查、一次合作、一次对话。一个迷信的人可能会崇拜文字背后的世界——更迷信的人已经这样做了。
女人在一个看起来很古老的聊天窗口中打出了一条信息。大约有15到20篇打开的档案围绕着它，就像孩子们围着营火，围着讲故事的人。
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/03:42/ID:12931VH - 你那里有进展吗？
如果你眯起眼睛（或有一个屏幕分辨率更好的终端），你可能会看到一个浮动着的快乐的小头像——找不到更好的方式来描述——在档案库里面。她从文字和嵌入的图像之间窥视着你。从她在数据空间的家中对你微笑。 档案库有灵魂，至少有个守护灵。 数据库回话了。
junajuniper/03:43/ID:12932VH - 有！至少我觉得有？来看一下，麦格。
文章以令人眼花缭乱的速度重新排列——在遥远的现实中，退后，麦格闭了闭眼睛。太快了，Juna。我们人类只能用我们疲惫的老眼来阅读你可爱的数据空间。
当她再次睁开眼睛时，Juna在屏幕中央得意地笑着。在你知道她的存在之后，你竟然很容易接受她的出现在你面前……在她身边，屏幕上有一段全新的文本——一篇新文章。不，是七篇新文章。都是一周半前写的，署名都是……
“泽西”·杰克·凯尔利尔。ID看起来不错。这是他失踪六个月后，他存在过的最后证明。麦格看到这些，心中有些东西蜷曲起来，挤压着她。
她的低语被淹没在冰冷的气流和外面街上晨运牛奶车的咔哒声中，它们在外面的街道上跑着牛奶。"你到底在哪里，泽西?"
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/03:43/ID:12933VH - 好的。所以这就是他在档案库中最近的活动？
jumpinjupiterjuna/03:44/ID:12934VH - 是哒！是很酷的东西。我只读了两遍。我想留着点。
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/03:44/ID:12935VH - 为什么我在基线终端搜索的时候没找到这些？
因为那次你没让我帮你，这大概是Juna想说的，但取而代之的是：
junajalopney/03:45/ID:12936VH - 因为他操作错了。他写下那些美妙的文字，然后，嗯，有个坏掉的终端在-，呃这么说吧，他把文章留在草稿里，没点发布。好吧，我真的说得很简单了，但这属于低级错误。凯尔利尔先生当档案管理员多久了？
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/03:47/ID:12937VH - 九年。不过这倒是能够接受的，他很不擅长数据输入。他或许是我知道的最棒的流浪者，一定是最勇敢的，但作为档案管理员在“归档这部分”真的很差。但是，
屏幕在突然的沉寂中发光，随后传来附近门廊上一名女郎抖动地毯的轻响。金绿色的光芒逐渐染红黎明的天空，海边的圣西西里重新恢复了活力。
juna/03:50/ID:12938VH - 但是……？
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:02/ID:12939VH - 这很糟糕。让我来解释一下。人类有自己的习惯，且通常会去遵循它们。因此一个人数据输入过程中的改变意味着他可能遇到了麻烦，变得与往日截然相反时尤为可能，比如一向精确、持续的记录员突然沉寂，或是不靠谱、拖延的人一下写完了积压的内容的时候。这就是Jersey的情况。当中有些条目他已经搁置多年了。这感觉就像是在处理后事一样。
junaofjuly/04:03/ID:12940VH - 我希望他没事。
junajoviality/04:03/ID:12941VH - 还有件事，我找你说的拉取了他的浏览记录。自从他失踪后有过三个活动高峰，前两次都是在看这篇文章：
葬礼灰色的谧蓝美利坚闪烁着。麦格倒吸一口冷气，她的心揪了起来，颤抖的手在键盘上艰难地敲击，却无法打出一个回复。
麦格全身发冷。美国五十个州的黑白平行世界，五十条处于或远或近的过去的平行时间线。没事的。她和泽西经历过更糟糕的。但是……
juna/04:05/ID:12942VH - 谧蓝美利坚中的每个州的时间流速均为基线的50倍。当其到达现实中的当下时间点时，谧蓝美利坚的时间线重置，一切都会丢失。过去六个月中即使他只有部分时间待在那里，你也需要快点行动了。
Juna当然是对的。这很糟糕。这几乎是最坏的情况了。天哪，凯尔利尔可能已经死于癌症或伤寒，马上会变成一堆枯骨——
她用力吞咽了一下，任由恐惧席卷自己。这微不足道，真的。任何值得一提的流浪者都能保持冷静。
麦格摇了摇头，任由思绪稍作发散。Juna对这件事严肃得令人惊讶——她从未见过数据库精灵这样认真——而且这确实有道理。Juna和档案库本身一样古老，她是阈限档案之子。在麦格和其他所有档案管理员都化为尘土，仅余文字记录之后很久，她仍会存在。
对她来说人的生命肯定只是眨眼之间，她这么上心真的很不错了。她确实提到过以前的档案库用户，也暗示了他们离开后自己的孤独……
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:07/ID:12943VH - 你说得对。所以他第三次访问是为了添加那些新的阈限空间条目？天哪，我到底要从哪儿开始找啊？
jackpotjuna/04:08/ID:12944VH - 是的，而且我觉得我可以帮忙。他那次访问了谧蓝美利坚的页面，编辑了两样东西：第一个是更新了BSA1佛蒙特州的当前时间线状态。
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:08/ID:12945VH - 这下范围就大大缩小了。
jackpotjuna/04:08/ID:12946VH 嗯哼！而且他添加了一张湖边小屋的图片，是佛蒙特州中部的霍华斯顿湖——我得再次感谢你们上传那些卫星数据。
其实那是一群档案管理员的功劳：至少一半发现者参与了。Juna彻底改良了档案库的预搜索扫描机制，所以他们给这位数据库之子送了份礼物。这是她应得的，是一段美好的回忆。
霍华斯顿湖，泽西给她留下了线索。天哪，但是BSA佛蒙特州的时间线马上就要重置了！要是此时此刻还没重置的话……
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:09/ID:12947VH - 泽西给我留了条线索。
jackpotjuna/04:09/ID:12948VH - 看起来他还没把后事都安排好。你会试着去找他吗？
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:09/ID:12949VH - 当然会，只要我做得到。BSA佛蒙特州即将重置，这
她抬起一只手揉着额头。自从泽西上次更新的时间点开始流速五十倍的时间线……麦格并不擅长数学，喷涌而出的恐惧更是混淆了她的计算能力……
jazzyjuna/04:09/ID:12950VH - 在佛蒙特州时间线重置前你还剩两天，我不用告诉你重置会发生什么了吧。祝你好运，麦格。
两天。她必须逆着人流赶回圣西西里腹地的灯塔，从阈折点回去，全速开到东海岸，乘美铁到佛蒙特州，再进入BSA。她能做到的。一定能做到的！她在搜索任务中遇到过不少更糟的情况。
麦格立刻开始行动起来：把吃了一半的干粮塞进包里，拿开门口的警示牌，并清理自己留下的垃圾。即使她觉得每一刻都十分珍贵（这里的一分钟在BSA里相当于三个多小时），她也不能违反冒险家守则。泽西一定不会违反守则的，要是被他发现在终端里乱丢垃圾会被他杀了的……
说到这个，终端上闪现出了一条新信息。天哪，现在可别找我，Juna。你刚才听起来像是让我自己处理这事，而且你本就应该——
junajimminyjingaling/04:11/ID:12951VH - 别忘了，在老教堂的钟声响起前，你无法穿过圣西西里阈折点，所以还得有几小时。记住这个——真的很抱歉打扰到你。我知道你着急救你的朋友。
Damn, she was right. God did it feel perverse to have to sit here and wait for a month on Jersey's end - if he was in the BSA right now, which Meg desperately hoped he wasn't.
juna/04:12/ID:12952VH - 你在吗？
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:12/ID:12953VH 嗯
junajuncture/04:13/ID:12954VH - 如果你不介意的话——能告诉我一些关于杰克·凯尔利尔的事吗？看起来你有很多故事可以分享。
我的上帝，Juna，不是现在。颤抖的双手打下一行小字，又将其删除，随后便是寂静，令人疯狂的凝滞。泽西的生命正以五十倍于现实的速度流逝，然而……
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:16/ID:12955VH - 你想知道什么？
junajudiciary/04:16/ID:12956VH - 因为你们这些档案管理员从来不写关于自己的东西。你们用你们的文字填充着数据库，但数据库并不了解你们。你们冒着生命危险，用如此美丽的方式记录着阈限空间和阈折点，但我从没机会了解你们。
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/04:18/ID:12957VH - 好吧。对不起，下次再说吧。
junajudasjollity/04:18/ID:12958VH 但是如果你再也没有回来呢？
麦格望着城市的景观逐渐被森林和村庄代替，车窗外的景观和色彩飞驰而过，天光渐暗，世界逐渐沉寂。夜班火车驶离华盛顿特区，向北前往佛蒙特州。
她马上得静下心来，进入谧蓝美利坚：整一列车就是她的阈折点，而她静如止水的心境就是钥匙。但现在她还有事要做。她蜷曲在破旧的小平板前，写下一条延时发送的信息，也是她写过的最像遗书的东西。只是对问题作答而已。只是风中的祈祷，万一她有幸能回到现实，回到这班列车上，便会将其收回。
Juna，
Sorry about leaving so suddenly. 'Jersey' Jack Cairlyle was a Finder - we're both Finders, actually. I don't think we've ever written what Finders are in the Archives… so here goes. Jersey's a problem solver, a rescuer, he's not a steady writer but he's the bravest guy with the biggest heart. The Archivists have no paramilitary stuff, we don't have armed teams or reaction forces and if the Devil followed us through a threshold we'd call the White House and pray. But…
There are a few of us with weapons and experience, that will range out with a rifle in one hand and a protective trinket in the other and our brother at our shoulder, to rescue an Archivist in danger. There aren't more then ten or twenty of us in the Finders at a time, there's no membership rolls, we each do what we're willing to do - some limspaces are just too damn dangerous. If nobody likes you, nobody's coming to get you. That sort of thing. But we've pulled off some real miracles in our time.
We'd track the trail of a vagrant across a shifting desert and a castle-filled sky, and Jersey would have the rifle and I'd have the instruments and some spare bullets. Finders always operate in pairs, minimum, and you trust your partner with your life. I paired with Jersey more often than not. A lot of Archivists owe him their lives.
It wasn't enough. Not for a man like Jersey, not nearly enough. But she just didn't have time, and frankly, nothing would be enough. This would be released from the holding server in one month if she didn't cancel it - and then she hit SEND and snapped the laptop shut.
Meg leaned back in her comfy Amtrak chair, letting her eyes slip shut as the cabin lights dimmed. The words of the Blue Static America article danced with the shifting scenery in the twilight hours, and drew her in…
In order to access BSA, one must achieve a certain transitory mental state while aboard an active metro or train. You must be on the verge of drifting to sleep, face pressed against the window, almost hypnotized by the passing scenery. Distant trees, mountains and lakes, moving slower than the clouds. Closer: fields of crop quickly coming in and out of sight, in a hurry but not a blur. Just beyond the window: the rails, gravel and train signs, shooting by.
As you are about to fall asleep, you notice the skies turning gray, landscapes losing their color. Suddenly you realize…
It wasn't just the twilight gloom - the world was cast in monochrome grey-black. Patches of blue static burned on the tops of the trees, on the back of the nearest cabin chair, in the clouds hanging dark in the sky. In the cars passing by.
She was still on the Washington D.C. to Vermont Amtrak. Soon they'd stop at her station, she'd get off and rent a car, and follow her printed directions to the house on Howardston Pond. Try not to gawk too hard at the blue static and get arrested by the BSA-CIA.
As far as thresholds went, this one might be the strangest yet.
Keep a low profile in the BSA. Don't draw attention. Don't place a dozen winning bets on sports to get rich. Don't point out the blue static to any locals. Don't make friends with the locals. This is a limspace - a deceptively, seductively familiar limspace - but a limspace all the same.
Meg wasn't a wide-eyed rookie that had just stumbled through a gap in the world. She didn't have any problems. She was a wanderer and a weeper and her brother's keeper. One of the unofficial mottos of the Finders - she hadn't told Juna that, had she? Juna loved those details. She was okay with summaries but she always wanted more, the whole story, vivid enough to paint a picture and capture a moment in the dataspace sky…
She'd walked the dead deserts and listened to the song of her death screaming in her ears. She remembered calmly loading magazines for Jersey, running and shooting a twelve-armed graveyard stitchwork entity till it stopped moving. They'd walked the highest trails of the Eterfol Mountains and kneeled under the gilded Penumbra courts of Middenground. She'd felt the red rage boiling in her heart and chilled it true with the chants learned in the Monastery of Thrice-Crowned-yl-Iyusuf. Meg wasn't having any problems with greyscale America.
And then all her experience and quiet self-assurance melted away like a spring thaw when she rang the doorbell to the house on Howardston Pond, and a precocious little girl opened the blue static door and flashed a monochrome smile.
"Hi, miss! Are you Meg?"
What? An unfamiliar thrill of panic surged up Meg's spine. She settled that down the next moment, but it wasn't enough - a little sliver of something sallow fell in her stomach, and caused her to shiver.
God, what does she even say to that? Is this some trick? An un-recorded facet of the Blue Static America, where it used your memories or used some allegories, or…
Before she could say something evasive and beat a retreat, a young man appeared in the door and scooped the girl up into his arms, smiling apologetically.
"I'm sorry. She asks every lady that comes to our door if they're 'Meg', so you've got the good company of the USPS driver, the delivery girl, that one, wait…"
Meg was doing a terrible job of masking her face - and she was staring. This wasn't Jersey, unless the BSA could make you younger instead of stealing your years away, but he looked startlingly, horrifyingly familiar-
"Wait," the man stopped, scoffed, and then smiled broadly. "Are you actually Meg? I thought the old man was just pulling our leg this whole time, are you…?"
There was another man behind him now, bent and wrinkled, his hair half-grey with age. Meg's blood ran cold.
'Jersey' Jack Cairlyle reached up and shook her shoulder with diminished strength but below an undiminished grin. "Hey there, Meg. Long time no see."
"What's good, Jersey?" she responded automatically, robotically, like another woman's voice coming from her mouth. Her throat dry all of a sudden.
"Want to grab a couple beers and watch the sun set?"
Meg could only nod dumbly. Like a distant dream, there were still voices…
John, I'll just be talkin' to my old friend for a little while. Take the grandkids outside, would you?
Alright, dad. Katy will be grilling on the dock, keep an ear out.
Yeah, yeah. Mary, why don't you show our guest my second-favorite chair?
Meg was calm again. She had to be. Some limspaces would kill you if you couldn't shake off the mimicry of your mother calling for help in the mad-touched mists - or your brother from another mother at the end of his life, with a wife whose wedding you never got to attend, kids you never got to be the cool aunt to, so many missed years as to nearly break your heart…
Her heart was broken, she wouldn't lie to herself, but she'd keep it together till she made it back to baseline.
With that thought to steady her mind, Meg took a long sip from a can of cheap beer and broke the silence in the porch, watching Jersey's family down in the grassy strip by the water's edge.
Far above, on the horizon, the timeline was breaking apart as it neared the present baseline date. Towering tendrils of blue static the size of mountains clawed their way into the sky…
"So you went and had a family, huh?" Meg said neutrally, looking straight ahead. She was really trying not to sound accusatory. "You settled down."
"Didn't think I would," Jersey shrugged. "BSA Vermont was just gonna be a vacation, but I met her… she's worth it. I don't have any regrets for the past decades, Meg. Please know that."
"You're not the kinda guy to tolerate regrets, Jersey." Meg's turn to shrug. But why…? "But why here? You know I gotta ask."
"I know," he nodded once, pursed his lips. Hard question, but he must have answered it long ago. "Fifty timelines streaming by. Really easy to not get attached, they're not real-"
He leaned forward, a kind of fire in his eyes. "But they are real. They're as full of life as any, Meg. If I went back to baseline, I couldn't recreate what I'd found here. What I'd made. It wouldn't be the same. Once you put down roots, once they catch the soil…"
Another Archivist lost to a limspace. Those were the happy searches, when the Finders found someone with a good life and no desire to return. But she never thought she'd find Jack Cairlyle among their numbers.
"I know it's going to end soon. I've made my peace with it. I've still had so much joy… I'm sorry you missed it all. I didn't want you to find me and drag me back. Now it's too late for that."
"How'd you manage it? Three visits to baseline, and the rest here, is that right?" Meg was all business now, just like old times - two Finders exchanging information. If she blocked out the tremors in Jersey's voice, she could close her eyes and imagine… "What the hell did you do for a living all these years?"
Jersey snorted in amusement. "You know how when you cross a BSA state's border, you pop into the next state's timeline? I just did that. I broke the rules. I made a lot of money off baseball betting in 1950s Boston. I told Katy I was traveling for my 'job'."
"Hah! Jersey, breaking Archive rules. Can't believe I've lived to see the day. We'll have to expel you for that," Meg said, trading wry smiles with the old man who felt like her old friend again. "Among other reasons."
"Yeah, well, about the visits to baseline," Jersey's smile disappeared. "The first two were me trying to bring someone out. Believe me, if I could - but you can't. You can't bring BSA folks out of the BSA. Can't even travel with them across to the next state. But I tried." He shook his head sadly.
"Then I realized - every visit to baseline was costing me time I'd never get back. I mean, every single thing we do in life is like that, yeah? But it's a lot more front-and-center when time's going at 50-times speed. I decided I'd make the most of my time with my family. And so I did."
"But that last time…"
"That was for closure. That's legacy. Those are my last memories of my old life. And I did leave that trail for you, because you deserved some closure. I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry."
"Only for a month, Jersey. That's how long we've been aware you were actually missing." Meg spoke softly now, soothingly. She hated seeing Jack Cairlyle like this, small and old and wrestling with his regrets in a rocking chair. It was an insane sight.
"But at least you got your backlog into the dataspace. Never mind the BSA, that'll live forever," Meg continued, trying to get the conversation going again. It worked.
Jersey was talking slow now, which was what he did when he wanted the words to stick. Scorchwords, he'd picked up that term on a stormy islet in the tempest-tossed waters not far off the mad tangle of the Moorich Woods… scorchwords. Words that burned and stayed.
"I've thought about this a lot, Meg. We've talked about this. Remember that tent when the rose-storm howled for a week straight and we couldn't find the threshold through the petals after?"
She just nodded. It had been one of their first Finders searches as partners. All they found were bleached bones and a half-destroyed journal, and the conversation had turned to death and legacies. The deepest fears shared in the lamp-lit dark. They'd had an unshakable bond after that.
"We're Archivists, we're mundane people in baseline but we see…" Jersey waved his hands vaguely, struggling to find the words.
"We live fuller lives than anyone else," Meg said softly, retracing the memory word-for-word. "We're witnesses to such strange and wonderful sights. We do more and see more… we live. That's what you said. We live so fiercely. We live to the fullest."
"Etched in our memory. We've carried the memory of dead worlds, of dead peoples, and living ones-" Jersey stopped, and clutched at his chest - a surge of emotion through a tired old frame. It nearly broke Meg's heart every time she had to look over and be reminded of all the missed years.
"We hold those memories and then we lose them and they're gone, just driftwood drawn back out into the ocean. They fade too, and despite the lives we live, those end too. I mean, nobody likes thinking about this. It sucks. But that's just how it is."
Jersey sighed and ran a shaking hand over his chin. "Is it any different, in the end, than these folks in the blue static? Fifty states on a timeline loop, each filled with people whose lives pass in the blink of an eye to us. But there's gotta be a limspace where time goes slower and we're a blink to them, right?"
"Maybe that's where one of our missing Archivists are," Meg said, in spite of herself. "If they found a limspace like that they wouldn't know it yet. They come out a month later and baseline is…"
"Nuked to oblivion? The sun's gone supernova? Still living on, but everyone you know is gone?" Goddamit, there was Jersey's stupid rhyming again.
"You're still a third-rate poet, Cairlyle," Meg laughed, feeling her gut twist at the emotional whiplash. "God, don't tell me you got your wife with that crap."
"Well, lemme tell you, it didn't hurt. I had an 'exotic aura', right? I was a bona-fide modern adventurer, and she'd never left Vermont…"
"Oh God, spare me. Want me to run down there and tell her about your little escapades in that Neptune bar? You were a real charmer in your youth, she ought to know about it."
"Stay right there, Meg. I swear to God - if this is how you say goodbye - but she'd just laugh. Katy's my better half. Let me tell you about how we met…"
But the good times couldn't last. Meg dimly remembered the tent under the rose-storm, when the conversation steered back to death and legacies…
"I'm sorry to force this upon you," Jersey said. Against the chair, his hand was shaking. "To bear my memory. That's what this is about. I wanted you to see my family, see our joy."
"And see the blue static climbing into the sky to swallow it all," Meg said, with the kind of bluntness she knew Jersey would appreciate. He didn't lie to himself. "You want me to go back to baseline with the memories."
"They'll live in your heart, we'll live in your memories," Jersey said, and somehow made that sappy-as-hell sentence sound so heart-breakingly sincere. "And I know those will fade too, some day, and me and my family will be gone for good. But for a few years, at least… I'm sorry."
Another silence - except it was not silence. There was wind whistling through the slats of the porch. There were children's voices outside, playing and laughing. Meat searing on the grill, waves lapping against the shore. And blue static boiling so fiercely into the horizon's sky, so vast and terrible that your mind tried to imagine its noise.
Such a towering sight, boiling and writhing through the clouds, must make some noise; but it was just there in ghastly silence. The children's laughter was louder even if the static made any sound at all.
"I can't find the words any more," Jersey finally, slumping low in his chair. Meg was transfixed on the blue static wall - when she finally tore her gaze away, she found Jersey looking down at his kids and grandkids with a soft smile.
"But you don't regret this." A statement of fact.
"No," he shook his head. "I've done well by them. Not many folks get to know the date of their end, right? So I've lived every day to the fullest. And even if you ask about the kids and grandkids, like, 'why would you bring life into this world only to see it end' kind of question-"
"That's just what we do in baseline. BSA's just a little faster," Meg finished the sentence.
"Exactly," Jersey nodded. "And to us, it's not faster at all. It's just life."
So she'd carry the memory he gave her. She could do that. It wasn't fair, but - to hell with it.
"Hey, I know you gotta go soon, God knows I don't want the BSA to claim you too," Jersey said, sounding strangely uncertain. "But could you come down to the water and eat dinner with my family? I've been selling 'em stories about you for decades now, said you'd be visiting soon… I promise the blue static hot dogs don't give you cancer or nothin'."
Okay. So she'd damn well remember every smile, every laugh, every bit of joy and personality in Jersey's kids and grandkids. She'd get a small slice of what he loved so that he'd choose to end here. She'd burn them into her memory and carry them back to baseline. Scorchwords.
One last time 'Jersey' Jack Cairlyle helped his partner out of her seat. One last time, a pair of Finders walked down to the water and broke bread together, and shared their stories.
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:34/ID:48215QR - 嘿Juna，你在吗？我回来了。
joltawakejuna/19:34/ID:48216QR - 我真的，真的很高兴I'm really, really glad to read that. Did you find Jack Cairlyle?
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:37/ID:48217QR - Yeah. He's been in the BSA this entire time, he was really old and had a family. We made peace with each other and said our goodbyes.
juna/19:37/ID:48218QR - 哦不，我很抱歉，麦格。
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:39/ID:48219QR - Thank you, but please don't be. He was happy where he was and how he ended. He's happy that I'm happy to keep venturing into limspace, so don't worry about me going anywhere. We talked a lot.
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:45/ID:48220QR - We did some thinking, and I unfortunately did some more thinking on the Amtrak back. We're all going to dust one day, right? I know you asked us to 'Don't Die' and we're doing our best, but- well, you know. Even with all the wonderful things we do and see as Archivists and wanderers. Jersey and his family will live on in my memory for a bit longer - exactly as long as I live, in fact - but that's not forever. The second-hand memories with the stories of Uncle Jack I tell my kids, hopefully, that's not forever either. All the stories and lives we carry in our heart, we can't carry them forever.
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:47/ID:48221QR - But we can cheat. We've got one thing over the rest of humanity - we've got the dataspace, Juna. What we write in the Archives, the things we pass on - that'll last forever. The dataspace is, as far as anyone can tell, infinite. It exists outside baseline, so all bets are off. That's insane. That's really special.
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:51/ID:48222QR - I'm sorry to ramble on like this. But I realized something - everything I tell you - YOU, Juna - that's immortal. I read exactly what you wrote when you first contacted us Archivists:
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:52/ID:48223QR - "[…] you can rest easy knowing at least one person is seeing what you record. That nothing will be lost forever. I’ll keep it here, in me, any scrap and every upload you want to share."
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:54/ID:48224QR - So if I tell you everything about Jack Cairlyle and his wife Katy, sons John and Jeremiah, daughter Jill, and all those grandkids I had to write their names on a pad - you'll remember them. They won't just be forgotten words in a cold library, you'll remember them. You're the daughter of the dataspace. You'd treasure them. In a way, they'll live forever. The closest anyone in human history has ever gotten to living forever.
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:56/ID:48225QR - So I'll tell you absolutely everything about him, if you'll listen.
jumpingforjoyjuna/19:56/ID:48226QR - I'd love to.
Oh, she would. Juna was doing that thing where her avatar poked up between the columns, smiling wide - that thing she did when she was really happy with some new writing.
wandererweeperbrotherskeeper/19:57/ID:48227QR - Great. Okay, so there was this bar fight in Neptune in the Boiling Sea, and I'd heard there was this idiot Archivist that got himself in 'hot water' with a local posse - I'm snickering, by the way, that was the first of his godawful puns I ever heard - and by the time I got there…