§12.0 — So You're Being Hunted
The Pursuit Clock is at 11. The Authority has locked the Era. The Chronos-Seams are sealed. You can't jump, and you can't hide in any way that matters. Your only option left is to Stop. Not just stop moving — stop existing in the eyes of time.
You need to enter the Tun-State.
Based on the tardigrade's survival mechanism — the microscopic creature that survives vacuum, radiation, and the cold of space by pulling all its water inward and going still — the Tun-State involves desiccating your Narrative. You push all your Emotional Mass (μ) into a singular, microscopic point.
I've done the Tun twice. The first time I lasted eleven days. The second time, forty-three years. I did not experience those forty-three years. When I came back, the Era I'd entered was gone. Everyone I knew in it was gone. My Anchor was intact. I was not.
§12.1 — How to Go Still
- Mnemonic Dehydration: Voluntarily "forget" your Current Era. Clear your mind of all immediate context. The Authority tracks Focus. If you don't care where you are, they can't see where you are. You have to mean it.
- CTH-Metabolic Arrest: Using a Dampening Asset, lower your internal vibration until it matches the background radiation of the era. Your heart should beat once every four hours.
- The Shell: Visualize your Anchor. Turn it inward. Create a "Narrative Crust" around your soul that is impermeable to the Red Pen. Make yourself small. Make yourself stone.
Once every four hours. I don't have a way to describe what that feels like from the inside except that it doesn't feel like anything. That's the technique. You become the feeling of nothing at all.
§12.2 — The Cost of the Wait
In the Tun-State, you are immortal and invisible. You can wait for a thousand years while Empires rise and fall over your head. But the Tun is dry.
For every century you spend in the Tun, roll for Memory Fracture. When you eventually "rehydrate," you may find that your Origin has turned to dust in your hands. The tardigrade survives. It doesn't always remember the pond it came from.
Only do this twice a decade maximum. The Revel recommends twice. I did it four times because I was being an idiot and now I have gaps I will never recover.
A smear of ink. I have seen the redaction files. The Authority doesn't erase you. They cross you out. With a single red line. You can see the shape of what used to be there. The stone is better. The stone endures. The ink just reminds everyone of what they decided to remove.
pg. 47 — Section 12 of 22 — classified distribution