Oh man, oh man, I've been looking forward to reading this all week! And as much as I was, it was even better than I was expecting!
Jenni's backstory is something we-the-readers have been aware of for a while now, but it was still interesting seeing her get as introspective about it as she does here. She's always seemed like a fairly mellow character (at least by PPC standards), so it was a nice change seeing her chafing under her assistant status while knowing she was capable of doing so much more. It makes her relationship with Supernumerary feel a bit easier to understand now. The fact that he represented her very first chance to help someone solve a major problem explains why she still attaches herself to him after years of Nume's attitude and emotional distancing.
For that matter, Nume in the present day actually feels more subdued, compared to his behavior in this story. He still says caustic stuff nowadays, sure, but in this piece, he feels like he's almost actively picking insults to keep Jenni from growing closer to him. He feels so much more vulnerable here than I'm used to seeing him, with the physical tics and the moments when memories overwhelm his mind. I'm not a fan of characters abusing substances, but I have to admit, seeing Nume pre-Bleeprin addiction is rather scary.
I have to admit, I'm so used to Cameo being out of the picture, I took it for granted when I started reading that Nume was already alone when the story opened, so I initially thought of his memory loss problem as something psychological that he needed to work through. But the second I saw her name mentioned for the first time, I just got this cold feeling inside, like "Oh. Oh. This is that." I'll admit, I've always been a bit curious about Cameo and her final falling-out with Nume, but I never really asked about it because I knew how much you disliked writing her. It was nice to get some closure about those events, even though they were off-page. Cameo does indeed sound like quite a yucky person. I do like the imagery of her sort of handling the neuralyzer around the RC to show her unhealthy fixation with it. (Her Precious?) It's also kind of spooky to think that Cameo might have gotten away with this behavior if she didn't happen to be partnered with one of the few people with eidetic memory . . .
The historical setting, and references to past events, make the whole story even more fun! In particular, I appreciated Bogglish and Pablum getting a posthumous mention and appearance, respectively. I feel like we need to start setting more stories in the past to flesh out some of the history that tends to only be mentioned or assumed from the Wiki. But then, that's easy for me to say, falling so far behind in my own writing . . .
—doctorlit, a week late