R E V E L A T O R (completed)

WAKE UPS (rosemary)

Rosemary wakes up at 6 A.M. on the dot like she has for the last five years since she turned forty.

She doesn't fight it. Rosemary would be the first to tell you she is nowhere close to being a fighter. She would explain that it's the most she can do just to get through the day, forget about anything else. Right now even getting out of bed is a challenge she's not sure she'll overcome. Intense dreams still clogging up her perception, distorting, confusing. Not that she should be surprised, these sorts of quirky phantasms are part of the package when she's coming off of too much LAO engagement. She's in her bedroom but she's also partially still somewhere else. Familiar, stories that repeat, sometimes more vividly than others. This time not so much, already fading fast, Rosemary thinking, weird, my weird dream life. Like most other things, she doesn't get into dreams. More or less buys into the theory they're just random neurons firing off.

A monster yawn escapes her that seems to rattle her molars and chases the last remnants of the dream out of her head. Rosemary feeling like she landed, solidly and completely in the here and now whether she likes it or not. She tries to convince herself that this micro sliver of sleep will surely help with the fidelity of her LAO engagement today but offers no other benefit. But the truth is, if anything, she feels more strung out and frazzled.

Listens to the dull patter of rain. No other sounds. Yaz still asleep. Her Puja7Q nicely charged, good to go for ten hours. Rosemary Sparks in and meshes into her adnub. Dials her gleam down to 65%. This is just to mollify Ethan, who thinks anything higher is inappropriate for family interactions. Ethan, as often is the case, is being completely ridiculous. 72% is fine, only the slightest reaction delay, no attention retardation. Barely goofy. She swears, Ethan's the only person who notices the difference. But he will notice and give her shit. So annoying. 65% makes LAO cartoony, everything more angular, nuances flattened, but since in the morning she's mostly just on Friends and Slack and Gyre, it's doable. Marriage is compromise.

She can make it work and make anything work as long as she can get that first cup of coffee in before Yaz wakes up. Being able to relax into that first cup has always been crucial for getting into that good head space. Especially today.

Tiptoes into the bathroom for her wake up pee. Putting in her recharged contacts and throwing on her hoodie, Puja7Q safe and secure in the kangaroo pocket.

At the same time, in her adnub, she pulls her Gyre compac close. Picks her five random thumbnails. Enters full immersion and peeks at her Vision Board, representing as a hyper articulated crazy quilt stretching off into a starry horizon, a mosaic of the thousands of thumbnails she has selected since she joined Gyre. All these little different colored squares, different textures, some of them pulsing, some of them displaying movement within their micro boarders. Gyre touts itself as a site for creative expression. She stumbled upon it by accident and wasn't sure how she was supposed to interact with the content, and her transition ritual more or less organically developed from that. Immediate gratification through meaningless, yet tangible accomplishment. Nothing more. Rosemary breathes a contented sigh and exits full immersion.

At the same time, she's padding down the carpeted hall past Yaz's bedroom. No sounds of life, no light from under the door.

In her adnub, she's flipping through her Friends feed. Chester, over in Dubai, done with work, looking for someone to join him in checking out this hot new gay positive district on GoGo. As she has over the last few months Rosemary continues to muse about how GoGo seems like it's blowing up. Is it going to be the next Carabou, the way Carabou was the next Flashlite? Maybe she should just bite the bullet and fill out a citizenship application and get in before it gets too expensive. More likely it will shut down because everything's supposedly going boutique. Boutique community apps for elite, and then open source for everyone else, like what that article she just read speculated.

Downstairs, the kitchen lights know better than to turn themselves on before they hear Yaz out and about. Mr. Coffee notices her and starts brewing. Rosemary ducks into the pantry to her Phood processor, which, having received her updated stats from her Spark, is dutifully congealing six bars for today.

You're supposed to consume a bar simultaneously with another Phoodie at one their Carabou cafes, the idea being you're networking and getting support from people who are also on similar diet plans. Food is social, health is social – that argument. The bars are engineered for a neutral taste and texture that supposedly doesn't clash, and even enhances the LAO cuisine the cafes offer. All reviews indicate it might not be a racket. The social scheduling part of the app picks up on how tired and out of it and potentially susceptible she is and pops up in her adnub. She immediately shuts it down. Rosemary occasionally does the Phood Café in the Hope Ash district in Carabou with Caden or Izzy. She has no interest in meeting new people. She isn't even using Phood to diet. Her nutrition plan is to try not to get fatter. Other than that, she could care less about how she looks. When she was young, she was skinny. Now she's not.

Once she has the bars packaged she she notes that, as usual, last night Ethan did a shitty job cleaning up after he made his meals. Rosemary wipes the counters. Ethan is mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually incapable of wiping down counters for some reason. Did he help her out and make Yaz's lunch? No. Inconsiderate. Selfish.

At the same, in her adnub, she has her Slant compac close to her, scrolling through the news captions for something she can peruse with her coffee. Almost tags an update about Bezos needing to be extricated from his deep orbit camp due to black mold having been found in the pipes. Tags an update about how there's evidence the vaccine Florida's governor, Donald Trump Jr., personally procured to combat the blight of pinworms in Miami is causing lockjaw in seniors and infants. A fresh story appears: the L.A. Times reporting Gemma P has left.

No kidding. Rosemary perking up. Is this real, or just another in an endless sea of teases and nonsense. Could this be an actual game changer?