A horrendous guilt had made its nest in Aster's heart. For a week— that is, a week of real-world time— Aster had dutifully furnished this nest with no end of woeful, self-hating, wretched thoughts which the guilt consumed like a fire of oxygen. It eclipsed the happiness to be made of the successes that came out of the residency— which had in all respects been a monstrous hit. In place of the Cherubs, Marion's old bandmates in The Sluggers came to fill in, and the shows proceeded with what looked like not a hitch to the outside world.

Roughly a month had transpired within Peppermint Plains during this week in Aster's actual life. This period saw their version of the Vallerie single steadily make its way up the charts, until at last, at the very end of the month, it had not only breached the top ten but found itself nestled right below the top five, which was entirely occupied for the first time in its history by only two artists— Bonnie Godiva and Johnny Vallerie.

This had a significant boost on the already incredible and consistently increasing anticipation surrounding the Love You Forevers' debut album, whose release was now only days away. The figures that were coming in, as reported to Floyd, were seemingly unbelievable— one hundred thousand advance orders. The band could scarcely comprehend such a figure when it was relayed to them, and could only react with the sort of stunned disbelief which was quickly becoming commonplace in the face of their whirlwind rise to the top. Indeed, their entire frame of reasoning seemed to have been blown out by the sheer magnitude of their achievements in relation to their paltry failures of not even a couple of months ago.

It was seemingly unbelievable to everyone; the band, their entourage, and the world at large, that this unknown group of individuals could captivate so many people in so short a span of time. But the fact was the world was captivated, and they responded by purchasing the single and album in such quantities that the Love You Forevers were at last, finally, rich.

Floyd had come to them one evening during practice. This was unusual for him, who usually left the band alone to their devices whenever it involved the musical aspect of the group, bringing with him a sort of suspiciously joyful air. Cecil was immediately wary, but without further hesitating he bestowed upon the band four fat envelopes replete with cash, with the aside that the rest of it had been deposited in personal accounts under Mareby-Roquefort's purview.

Each and every last member of the band was speechless with the receipt of this money, for up until this point the paper-thin screen between dream and true success had not yet been breached in their minds, but only periodically bumped up against in their journey, like someone traipsing against a beautiful silk curtain and watching the beautiful day outside.

They at last crossed the divide and became suddenly aware of the reality that they had achieved success. It wasn't total success, but the noteworthy amount of cash in their hands was the most sincere acknowledgment of at least a tiny bit of it that capitalistic society could offer.

None were more outwardly pleased with this present than Marion, whose first order of business was to purchase himself the nicest drum kit he could find. He then furnished a small savings account for himself and his distribution company, and dispensed the rest of the cash among his men and neighborhood, declaring it a “bonus” for having stuck by him up until this point. Sylvia was even more charitable, giving away all of her earnings to various interests between anti-war protest groups, civil rights groups, and Randall's college organization.

Cecil did not speak of what he did with his earnings, though a portion was evidently invested in Sisi's growing venue, which suddenly came to be outfitted with more permanent lighting and structural support, to Floyd's never-ending chagrin. The only other visible result of it was a new, yet unassuming piano, whose varnish he took great care in maintaining the shine of.

And finally, Aster found that she did not care in the slightest for her riches. She was already wealthy in her actual life, and so the sight of such amounts did not excite her in the way it did her bandmates. Thus, she couldn't help but feel a sort of disappointing emptiness at the fact, like she was missing out on one of the sweetest fruits to be found along the road to fame.

She resolved to take most of her earnings and spend them on Sylvia, at whom she felt a twinge of sadness in not seeing treat herself. She purchased for her authentic Zorg memorabilia, at which the sight of Sylvia's brain ceasing to function due to the sheer happiness coursing through it, also brought Aster more happiness than she ever figured money could buy. It was the least she could do, she figured, to try and blot out even a little bit of the guilt that March had given her.

—

The week had shown a gradual downturn in all aspects of Aster's life. Her sleeping schedule had become even worse following the news of her mother's hearing and of the Cherubs' breakup, such that her mood plummeted into an irritability alien to even herself. Her fights with her sister, who blamed Aster for every single thing now, were bordering on perpetual, such that their father at last finally threatened to send Dahlia to their Aunt Margot, whom Dahlia despised, on the grounds that she was clearly instigating the fights.

This threat, so unlike Aster's father, was just one marked symptom of his visible decline ever since the news of Margreta. He had begun to match Aster in shortness of temper, and Aster began to quarrel with him for the first time in her life. She seldom ever left her room now, but when she did she'd often find him with his head in hands, muttering to himself. The sight was like an awful painting; a gut-punch of dismal feeling the sight of which sent Aster reeling back into her bedroom with renewed depths to her depression.

Thus, in this manner the week proceeded— Aster visited Nancy twice at the scheduled time and spent the days in between meetings watching her life spiral into a chaos she wasn't sure she could bring it back from.

On Friday, she entered the living room on one of her rare excursions out, failing to have accounted for enough snacks to tide her over until dinner. As was now usual, her father was caught in some ghastly spell, however, today he looked like he had fallen even lower. He was watching the television projection, and Aster slowed her walk as she passed by to take a look.

An anchor was proudly displaying a photograph of what appeared to be Cedar Czukay in captivity; disoriented and huddled within a small, sterile room, while bulletins of various fonts and colors streamed all around the footage. These disparate little blurbs swarmed around like gnats, sowing urgency and anxiety to ornament the already disturbing footage, yet saying the same thing in many different ways— he has sinned and the nation shall judge— in one week. The national anthem blared and Aster was at once aware, like a Pavlov'd animal hearing the ringing of a bell, of the significance the trial represented to their nation. Though she was generally apathetic to the world at large, an inexplicable mournfulness suddenly invaded her; she felt sadness and anger at the sight of Czukay despite her logical understanding that he had done nothing wrong.

—

It was the sort of news that dispels the mundane everydayness that inevitably falls over life, if only for a second, and shows the truth behind society— that it is at best barely holding on. This was never more true than now, with the date for Cedar Czukay's trial being announced on screen before her. Even Dahlia had forgone the de-militarized zone of her room to gather around and watch the news. Aster felt keenly that something was changing; that something significant was shifting in the world in which she lived. The look of her father only proved this.

Aster, who once couldn't care less about the goings on of this terrible world, was now finding herself more and more preoccupied with thoughts about it. Thanks to the influence of Sylvia, she was now for the first time in her life criticizing facets of a society she had accepted wholesale. The chief of these being the question of democracy— a concept of which Sylvia talked incessantly, but which had been entirely alien to Aster. She had not so much as ever heard the term before, and so the question arose in her bushy little head; was it a creation of the simulation? She stopped herself before she inquired online; the government had extraordinarily strict censors meant to protect its citizens, and breaching them meant an instant visit from the police. While she wasn't sure that democracy wasn't an invention of Peppermint Plains, she couldn't risk figuring out that it wasn't.

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And yet, the idea that it wasn't novel, but a truly human ideal furnished the growing seed of doubt that Sylvia had planted, using the soil tilled by Aster's experience with the Eden-device. She found herself thinking more and more often, Sylvia would fight against this. And so it became almost impossible for her to reconcile the trappings of her actual life with the blind eye she used to turn. Why didn't she have a say in the world?

Dahlia had been preening on incessantly about how the neighbors' attitude towards her had turned cold.

“They all shut their doors on me! Only Neighbor Jacob says hi!” she complained, pronouncing Neighbor Jacob's name with considerable distaste. She set her dark, endearing eyes heavily on her father, wishing to draw something out of him. He simply faced forward at the projection, engrossed with his dark, morose gaze into nothing. It looked like his brain was continually at work, but the problems just kept piling up.

He had nothing to say to his daughter. She wouldn't accept the answer that that was just how things went; a family's status seldom survived being visited by both a Mother's Helper and a hearing before the Department of Inner Peace. Things got around, and the last thing that one wanted was to have it visit their house like a disease.

It was all so stunningly fucked up to Aster, now. Like sun-baked mud flaking off this new awareness dawned on her, assuaging her with deeper and deeper feelings of moral revulsion, until she at last could not turn anywhere without being horrified.

—

Though it was only to the street corner, it was Aster's first time leaving her apartment in months. The sun shone brightly in her eyes, and the breeze caressed her with a surprising freshness forgotten indoors. A loud, rhythmic sound echoed from down the street, where she, her family, and hundreds of others awaited a citizen's parade en route downtown.

Details on Cedar Czukay's trial had just been announced, including the trial date a month away, so the state was keen on a campaign of public morale-boosting, which included citizen's party parades such as these. Aster despised anything that brought her out of her room, but participation in these sorts of social welfare events was necessary both for eluding suspicion and for eligibility in collecting state-appointed Universal Basic Income.

The parade carried with it banners displaying projections of woeful-looking, emaciated faces; glassy-eyed and tatter-haired, which placards underneath declared were the results of Eden-device abuse. It is a cancer of the soul, an orator walking with the parade proclaimed in a warbling tone. It is no different than killing yourself; you fade away all the same!

“It's going to be legendary!” a man— Aster's neighbor— was exclaiming with particular zeal to Aster's father as they watched the procession. “I was told they're gonna have fifty-thousand witnesses! Can you believe that? And not just judicial questionnaires at home, either— in person! Apparently, the same tech that takes the witnesses' testimony and compares it against the prosecution's list of questions can be scaled up easily.”

“Yes, I'm well aware,” her father responded with a flat tone. The neighbor, an older man named Jacob in his early seventies, had been perhaps the one familiar face in Aster's life outside of her family. He had always been courteous to her on the very rare occasions they'd cross paths in the hall; incidents more numerous when she was a young child less burdened by her social anxiety, and the soft, dulcet tone with which he spoke was surprisingly disarming in regards to her nerves. She considered him the one stranger she did not hate.

Neighbor Jacob had a fondness for talking, and in particular, seemed to be continually astounded at the advances of their age, which he had seen come about throughout his life. He was not fond of the party, however, which Aster thought dangerously bold and which imbued her with an urge as she grew older to not be near him, as though responding to a defense mechanism. He was born long before the state had come to power during the revolution and was so set with that contrarian zeal that is often found in relics. Dahlia, accordingly, who spent great amounts of her free time engaged in social activism for the party and was in the process of her exams to become a Mother's Helper, despised him.

She wrinkled her brow while watching Neighbor Jacob speak to her father, wearing a look like she smelled foul food. This look was erased by the approaching parade, to which Dahlia turned her eyes and lit up with an expression of pure joy. A row of children led the entire congregation, outfitted in colorful garb and singing an infectious party anthem, which could not help but carry onto the row of spectators, who looked down at the adorable revolutionaries with exceptional pride.

Aster's eyes veered sharply from the banner projections. They were ghastly, stomach-churning sights, and the question of how she had ever even believed things like that before filled her mind. What even was Eden-device abuse? She certainly didn't look like those projections, despite using it. And if she were allowed to use it forever— like she desperately wished— would she turn out like that? She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts from her mind. Still, Aster could tear her eyes from the light peering through the crack in the state's facade which was now showing itself to her. The Eden-device was nothing like they warned. For all its troubles— the incident with the Cherubs the most freshly at the front of her mind— it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her.

“You have to make an example,” Aster's father said, in reply to something Neighbor Jacob had said. “The other four heads need to consolidate their power and show that this incident is a moment of growth in the party, rather than a catastrophic weakness, like the Vanguard would want to promote.”

“You don't think that they'll replace Czukay?”

Aster's father shook his head. “I don't think so. The only company with the stature to do so is his, and that will be under investigation for years, now.”

Dahlia's ear had been caught by the mention of the Vanguard, and she looked over eagerly at the two adults, stomaching even her dislike of Neighbor Jacob, in eagerness to participate in a real political discussion.

“Czukay was a member of the Vanguard all along, so in reality there were only ever four true leaders!” she opined, inflecting her words with a gravity sufficient to deliver her mature thoughts on the subject.

“Well, I guess I can see that,” her father replied. “Four members allow a more unified voice, and heaven knows that's what we've needed. It's been so difficult to know where to go since the revolution.”

“It'd just be easier if they got it over with and let an AI rule over us all,” Neighbor Jacob chuckled, looking merry. Dahlia's face flashed red, and she looked at him in horror. Aster's father seemed to notice this, and seeing that the parade was now beginning to pass down the street and out of sight, quickly made his goodbyes and took his daughters back into the building.

—

The following day, Aster and Dahlia were called into the living room by their father. Aster's stomach immediately dropped, though not because of her hatred of her father's increasingly frequent attempts to bond the two sisters back together, but by his tone of voice indicating that it was about their mother.

She approached her father. His eyes were sunk back into the firm recesses of their sockets; divots dug by lack of sleep, and he composed his already naturally thin frame like a schoolmaster ready to impart a heavy lesson. Both sisters at once understood the gravity of forthcoming news and did not fence with their usual savage glares.

“I have just gotten word of your mother's trial date,” he began, in a low voice, “It will be held next Friday, six days from now.”

Dahlia gasped.

“There is good news. I have heard that the judge overseeing her case is especially lenient in these situations, so with a good defense there is a high chance she will be let go.”

The tension in his face lifted slightly. Dahlia was visibly excited by this and became animated. “You've hired a good lawyer, right?!” she clamored.

“Yes, of course,” he said, strength now returning to his voice. “We will bring your mother home.”

Aster received the news silently, staring at the floor. Dahlia was not pleased by her lack of reaction and fell into her usual accusations about Aster being heartless towards their mother.

“Dahlia!” their father roared. He looked with incredible sternness at her. “The last thing we need right now is this! How will it look if you two fight at her hearing? Have you thought of that?!”

Dahlia folded her arms and frowned.

“I'm serious, I'm this close to not letting you talk with Mrs. Marienne, tomorrow.”

“No!” she shouted, throwing her arms against the seat. “I'll be good! I promise!”

Aster watched the tiny hands wrack the couch in apology while her veins froze over. It seemed like every strike against the cushion drove a nail deeper into the center of her quickly maddening brain, her father's and sister's voices mingling together into pure, sonorous feedback.

Was it possible to survive this, she thought? For the sake of the Love You Forevers— for everyone in Peppermint Plains— she needed to find out.