[as they make way against the current of the stream, the draw further away from the settlement's path and towards more wooded area, where vegetation grows wilders, the canopy of the forest incurring a chill despite the sun atop their heads. it's quieter here, but for the tweeting of birds, the scurrying of squirrels and other forest critters.

the stream babbles beside them, growing a little wider and changing their path at times, as they follow it under mossy logs and stones.]

Our connection with the Singularity is still too vague to know exactly how much of an influence we have on it. Or it on us. Still—

[wanda takes a moment to step up onto a sizable rock blocking their path; it strains her knees a bit. she offers her hand back for himeka, who is much shorter, though more than capable.]

I found myself in a room with — TV sets. The object you saw in my memory some months ago, playing out memories, with the buttons and the antenna? There were so many of them, and—

[up she pulls himeka, but she keeps her hand holding her friend's.]

Matt was there. He said... [she shakes her head] things. Things that are true, but I thought, that he— I want to think he didn't mean them, but I'm just ... tired of people hating me. Specially him.