Entry 32: 18 Poråkol 1865

Epiphany

Today, I thought about how to gain access to Aneti’s room while I stood in line to buy traditional paper. I spent 10 lh. on this notebook. It has 360 pages, and it (surprisingly) lies flat. The Sabaji use base twelve, so this was one of those situations where I had to buy a bigger notebook than I wanted because I refuse to buy things in units of that obscene counting system. I will conserve paper from now on because this is so much more expensive than my smart sheets. There is no data storage. I cannot annotate or do anything interesting to the text.

At least I can burn this instead of relying on Liga to correctly apply deletion so that forensics cannot uncover ler comments on my smart paper. At least I will not have to tag text that could look bad in court, in that specific — if we need to use the audio and journal, I need to look as heroic as possible.

At least these analog thoughts are mine and mine alone — in the most asocial way. At least I can say things here one would never say where other people would see. At least I don’t have to toy with Liga to see if I can get lim to crack open. Le won’t, not unless I apply so much pressure that it hurts our business relationship.

I’m printing my smart paper images to traditional paper. That’s the only way to know that le won’t go in and delete everything. It won’t catch the audio attachments or the videos, but it will get text, and that’s important. There’s a pocket in the back of this journal. I’ve already taken out the sheets to accommodate the bulk. I don’t know — if the printer magically transported my documents somewhere else, I don’t even care at this point. Liga can go fuck limself.

How can I trust ler digital forensics when I know that someone in the building’s computer has been stalking me?

Nothing Liga has recommended has or will work. Liga and I both know that the pure seduction tactic will fail. Aneti would awaken if I tampered with ler room without drugging lim first.

Liga is also wrong. Aneti must have something hidden there that can make this work shorter and less painful for me. I need to fashion an opportunity that will give me access without the burden of anyone’s eyes, and drugging lim is the way forward. I could knock lim out directly, of course — which means that le will know, for one, and that would compromise the overall mission. I could go when le is not at home and hope that the family will let me in. But, they wouldn’t. I’m ?gzarhjenya. Someone would say something.

I will drug lim.

Stopping this assassination conspiracy is a top priority. I have so many anxieties about other things, too — like the identity of that woman in the photographs who looks like me. Any time I spend on that diverts energy from taking care of Aneti. I don’t want my fear of losing lim — what, to make me stand idle while le and Daybreak murder a politician?

Aneti and I were supposed to see a lantern-lighting ceremony in one of the parks. Le canceled, so I went home to read the news while I waited for word on whether Gyetsuk and Kitesrati wanted to play cards in one of the local cafés. Gyetsuk told me to message Kitesrati directly, and the two of us will have dinner later this evening.

Kitesrati is uncomplicated and just what I need in a relationship. This is the rational way to curb my interest in Aneti. A motivated ?gzarhjenya woman like lim will make my family happy. This is the duty that I have before my ancestors, second only to my oathbound friendship with Suka.

Fuck Liga. I am so angry, and here, I don’t need to mince words.

No amount of love for Aneti will change ler connections to Daybreak. I cried this morning with my hand over the webcam. I put paper over it in two layers, but it won’t stick. Whoever watches me — if le does it the right way, without activating the screen — should not see me fucking Aneti. Le should not see me crying alone in my room while all of those old wounds about Kelis spew their bitter, rusty blood.

Aneti, Sehutañi, attracts me so much. I think I recognized that we both know loss when I met lim. Here we are, bearing the weight of it, on opposite sides. Kitesrati is so fresh. Le couldn’t possibly know what this pain means. Kitesrati flirts with me at breakfast, and while I want to have sex with lim, Kelis’ death has left a ravine of life experience between me and other women my age.

A news story about a murder plot and the Kohjenya hit the news today. I printed it to paper and pasted it into the notebook. The manufacturers should really make it easier to add extra things — if I do this often, the binding wouldn’t like it. It’s so laborious to do this manually, but I like digital. I like being able to link and reference things. That’s the hard thing about printing.

EQUILIBRIUM NEXUS PROVIDES INFORMATION ABOUT A MURDER PLOT IN MENARKA TO AUTHORITIES, MANY ARRESTED

A series of arrests made local news channels this morning in Menarka, Narahja, as six individuals faced questioning over an assassination attempt against Senator Tsekar. Police confiscated weapons and bombing equipment from two additional individuals in the Menarka Skyrail. The names of the two would-be murderers have not been released.

The controversy comes from the source of the information, a group called Equilibrium Nexus. Its founder, Karatau Vepessa-Main? Meiyenesi, passed information to the police three weeks ago. “The police failed to follow up because they don’t believe that the information is trustworthy, so my associates and I hired contacts to track those involved and lead two sympathetic police officers to the criminals,” Akah Main? told the Menarka Daily News. Le described a situation of continuous hostility between the police and Akah Main?’s independent investigators.

Police have commented that they have a thorough internal verification process that must be followed before moving on any intelligence information, including a review of legitimate information sources. The plot against Senator Tsekar did not create flags in their systems.

Further, police commented that the methods Equilibrium Nexus used to obtain the information are illegal: digital espionage and hacking. Equilibrium Nexus is in a legal gray area because its members fall under tesekhaira exceptions. When asked, Akah Main? said, “I don’t think that digital privacy adds to the discussion in this case. People have choices in the technology they use, and relying on a single source of intelligence information will definitely lead to gaps in knowledge. This isn’t the seventeenth century, and the post-Taritit world requires a more nuanced understanding of information. If you receive everything from the Karatha, whoever the Karatha hate will be vulnerable to attack. Let’s stop using euphemisms like ‘legitimate’ when this is the intelligence source they mean. Right?”

Representative Tsekar has been criticized in recent years for failures to speak out strongly against Shiji primacy, culminating in ler condemnation of the protests and riots across Narahja in 1860. Le has increased the amount of Tveshi required to pass the entrance examinations from Cohort to Advanced Studies, citing the importance of Tveshi as the nation’s common language. The legislation resulted in more protests in 1863, when 68% of students taking the exam were held back due to a lack of language proficiency.

Equilibrium Nexus denies any possible connections to Narahji separatists and pivoted our interview to discuss the broad-based, destabilizing Cradle and Daybreak Movements that still have mainstream supporters.

The police waited until noon to announce that eight leaders of the Tveshi Cultural Coalition and three known Cradle activists have been detained, bringing the arrest count to twenty-one. The Tveshi Senate has started an inquiry into suspected members of the Narahji Separatist Movement, focusing on the families of those arrested. If they find Narahji Separatist ties, the anti-protest legislation currently stalled in the Senate may find a path forward.

Updates will be posted following next week’s scheduled press debrief.

It does not surprise me at all that the Tveshi-language article called the Kohjenya Equilibrium Nexus or that the reporter ended by talking about the NSM. Liga must have some part in this article because le lives in Menarka, and Karatau Meiyenesi would have controlled lim like an archer controls an arrow. I can hear some of Liga in the quotations. Of course, the Kohjenya must have other Kohjenyakri who can program.

If Liga were the only expert, le could never keep up with the demands of watchdogging the entire intelligence community.

Wait. If Liga were the only expert Kohjenakri, it would give a new meaning to ler anxieties and lack of communication. Is Sehutañi the only one overwhelmed by the workload?

The official article linked to documents about Equilibrium Nexus from the Galasu Knowledge Foundation’s online encyclopedias. I will continue to use the Narahji term because it’s shorter, but the Kohjenya have a surprisingly short article. The one about the Karatha is 89,000 words. The one about the nuamua is 120,140.

The Kohjenya have 2,000 words. Karatau Meiyenesi started it at some point between 1399 and 1450. The first mention of them comes from a political commentator in 1479. The Shiji writer wrote, “A new faction has come out of the nuamua, and they call themselves a bound pathway united together. The leader, Karatau Meiyenesi, is the one among the nuamua who wore the red color of mourning until we beat the Sh?dakla back from our wide shores.”

Otherwise, the Kohjenya played a pivotal role when we overthrew the Taritit. It supplied the intelligence and the communications grid that the rebels used. It worked with Maðz and Atara to bring reinforcements for the space battle.

The organization has helped people, and my grandmother has connections to them. I have hazy memories as a child of lim sending all of us kids to the guest audience room because the middle generation of the household didn’t want us exposed to a collective. I remember peeking out and seeing a well-dressed jomela squeeze my grandmother’s hands and kiss both of ler cheeks.

If our matriarch would allow a Kohjenakri to touch lim and kiss ler cheeks, I will fall in line with that jomela. The middle generation of my family became so conservative. I can hardly blame them if the Kohjenya can be so easily confused with the nuamua.

However, the words in Tveshi — and the origins of the term in Narahji — do beg a very specific question. Equilibrium Nexus. Kohjenya, or Kofahjenya (ly?b-/rua-/luar-)asub, which means mindspeople together of the same status in Narahji. What is the meaning of nexus, and who is bound together in this path?