Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

The chat

The » Name: lines: where Carl talks to people who are not in the room. A handful of voices at first — Donut, Zev, Brandon from Meadow Lark — and the way a party becomes a network.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 4 — Gloom Wraith Phase
• Chapter 13 — The FUPA; a suicide bomber
• Chapter 20 — Christmas Morning; the Ramp-Up
• Chapter 21 — The southern trenches; rot stickers
• Chapter 47 — Tattoos, and a flower offered
• Chapter 56 — Justice Light; the Nest
• Chapter 57 — Thirty-two boxes; the last prisoner
• Chapter 60 — Meatus; the King's Point erupts
• Chapter 63 — Into the Madness
• Chapter 66 — Rolling Battle Formation
• Chapter 67 — Hey, Dickless
• Chapter 69 — Interlude — Several days earlier; Interlude — Rosetta; Zarogoths
• Chapter 73 — An act of fiendish cruelty
• Chapter 81 — Executive Order 11905

Arc

1,047 lines, forty-four voices — the war's operations channel, with a second one above it: 'You have one important message in the Warlord Chat', 'a special message board where all officers could talk' (ch. 1). Rosetta's first line is a warning, 'Don't say anything out loud. They're still listening' (ch. 11); Florin puts the FUPA up in it and 'in seconds there were dozens of animated responses' (ch. 13); Boomer, Justice Light, Juice Box, Epitome Tagg, Baroness Victory and the warlords have lines, and 'Warlord Carl' is a name of its own from 'Oh, fuck off' on (ch. 19). Densest at ch. 59, ch. 69 and ch. 81; the last line is Justice Light's: 'I am not sorry. Peace to you all, brothers and sisters' (ch. 87).