Once upon a time there was a pebble. Just a pebble. A very normal pebble. It was round and smooth, greyish-whitish, with a few very pretty silver speckles that it would have been quite proud of, if it could have thought about such things. But it couldn’t. Because it was a pebble and pebbles don’t have brains. Everybody knows that. But for the purpose of this story let’s give the pebble a name. Let’s call it Pebble.

Pebble sat patiently on the bottom of a small stream for a long time. The stream was in a beautiful mountain valley, with a couple of lakes at the top, trees and bushes near the water, and a handful of overly luxurious, overly large, frequently uninhabited vacation homes at the bottom. Winding up the valley, from the houses to the lakes, was a small and very lovely trail. It was crafted just so. It wound up and it wound down and everyone who walked upon it remarked on its clever design and wonderful views.

Pebble was unaware of any of this. He (can I call him a he?) sat on the bottom of the stream and was rolled forward by the pressure of the water on him. During the winter he moved very little. The stream was frozen after all and the fish were all asleep and it was like he was asleep too. He would nestle in a little cranny, amongst the other pebbles, and they would all sleep together.

During the spring he would burst into activity, bouncing and dancing down the stream bed, moving along with all his friends, slowly becoming more round, more polished, and just a bit more like all the other round, polished pebbles that surrounded him. You could think of the stream like a giant rock tumbler. At the top, the rocks were sharp and large, having fallen freshly off of the surrounding cliffs. They had individuality and character. At the bottom the rocks had been turned into pebbles – round and smooth. They all looked alike, with only small differences in color and character. All of this change was accomplished by the power of the water in the stream. The rocks didn’t actually dance you see, they were pushed along by the water, bouncing and dancing because of the swirls and eddies and the unrelenting pressure of all that melting snow and ice. There is very little that water cannot do if it is given enough time to do it.

One day Pebble was pushed to the side of the stream during a very strong rush of melting snow and then he was left there to dry in the sun. He no longer moved. Well not much anyway. And if he had had any thoughts you might say that he was bored. His friends moved on without him but he had new friends. All around him were rocks that had also been pushed aside by the stream, exposed to the weather, no longer in the womb, expelled into the real world. But he had no thoughts, so he wasn’t bored and he didn't worry at all about his friends, either old or new. He just sat there and weathered.

***

Pablo the Fairy was tired. Very tired. He’d been up to no good for what seemed like hours now. A lot of hours. So many hours… His feet dragged on the ground and his little wings lay limp. He hated walking but his wings were done. Completely done. He’d been flying for … well hours. And they were just completely out of juice. The only way to get more juice was to let the sun charge them back up again. So he walked, his wings behind him, catching sunlight and sparkling faintly as they sucked up energy.

Pablo wished he could suck up some energy. He had none left. First he’d gone into a huge vacation home and tickled the feet of every person who lived there. While they were sleeping! He’d woken them up and then he’d giggled about it. There’d been only two people in that monstrous castle of a house and they’d both been monstrously old, but he’d take what he could get. Four whole feet tickled! Then he’d sprinkled a little pepper into the nose of a cat. That was pure fun. It had sneezed and yowled and run about the yard until someone had to let it in, where it had hid under the bed for the rest of the night.

He’d spent the entire night causing problems. That was a night well spent. But now he was so very tired. All he wanted to do was go home, curl up into a little fairy ball and go to sleep so he could do it all over again tomorrow. It was a good life, he had to admit it.

As he walked, his pouch of fairy dust bounced along at his hip. He hardly noticed it because it weighed almost nothing. The fairy dust, in fact, weighed less than nothing. That was the beauty of fairy dust, it didn’t obey any of the rules of physics that you are used to. Gravity means nothing to fairy dust. The Earth can’t pull on it, wind can’t move it, and water can’t make it wet. The only thing that fairy dust obeys is intention. When Pablo would pull fairy dust out of his pouch with his hand, he wasn’t actually touching the dust, because it ignores the electromagnetic force, and his hand would go right through it if he wasn’t concentrating on the right intention. So when Pablo picked up fairy dust, he concentrated on his intention to pick it up and the fairy dust obeyed his will and pretended like it was being picked up – nestling in his hand in a fair imitation of normal.

But it wasn’t normal. Not even close. Fairy dust is magic. Everyone knows that.

Sometimes fairy dust has its own intention. Did you know that? If so, good for you, because not many people do. You have to be pretty well steeped in fairy lore to know that fairy dust will sometimes, very rarely, but just often enough to be interesting, make a decision on its own.

This was one of those times.

While Pablo dragged his feet up the lovely trail in the beautiful valley, next to the lively stream, on his way home to his little nook in a tree, part-way up a large, grey cliff, the fairy dust decided on something. The fairy dust decided it wanted to make a little trouble of its own. It only seems fair, right? Pablo had been having so much fun, the fairy dust wanted to have a little fun too. So it drifted out of the pouch and a few small, sparkling, speckles floated behind Pablo for a moment before drifting lightly down onto Pebble.

***

Pebble woke up. Not all the way awake mind you. He’d been sleeping for a very long time. Millennia. Since the beginning of time, I suppose, if you count the fact that his atoms were built in the belly of a star. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been awake. Maybe this was the first time? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that he was a pebble and he was alive and he was laying on something hard and he couldn’t see anything or hear anything or really move at all, but he knew who he was. He was Pebble!

Wait he could move. A little bit. So he wiggled. If anyone had been watching and they had been watching very, very closely, they would have seen a small, grey pebble wiggle just a little bit in way that couldn’t be entirely explained.

He liked to wiggle. This was fun! So he kept doing it. And the more he wiggled the more he realized that he was changing. Something was happening on the bottom of him. Well it was the bottom of him now, because he was growing legs. Little tiny pebble legs were sprouting from one side of him. When it seemed like they had stopped growing, and after he had started to get bored of wiggling, he decided to try to use them, and so he stood up.

That might be too graceful of a term to use for what he did because when Pebble stood up for the first time it was more like a crazy lurch that ended with him upside down, with his legs sticking straight up into the sky. Now that his top was facing down and his bottom was facing up, it was much harder to stand up, so he wiggled some more. It had been a few minutes and he was starting to miss it - wiggling really is pretty fun if you stop and think about it.

After wiggling for a while, his legs were underneath him once more and he decided to try standing up again. This attempt was much more successful and so he stood upon his little legs and he swayed back and forth while he learned how to balance. It was at this point that he realized he had a mouth.

“Oh”, he said. “Wow.” It wasn’t the most amazing thing anyone has said, but I’m pretty sure it is the most amazing thing a pebble has ever said and Pebble was quite proud of himself.

“Oh! Wow!” He said again. He felt he was getting the hang of this. He could stand and he could say two words. That was some serious progress. Then he discovered that he could walk. From walk he discovered he could run, and at this point Pebble realized the world was an amazing and wondrous place.

He ran forward at a breakneck speed (for a pebble) screaming at the top of his lungs (pebble lungs), “Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow!”

If someone had been walking on the trail on this lovely summer day, and they had been at the right place at exactly the right time, they would have seen a tiny little pebble running as fast as it possibly could, yelling as loud as it possibly could in a squeaky little pebble voice. They would have heard it coming from the direction of the stream, over some grassy knobs, across the trail (where he kicked up just a little bit of dust) and across to the other side into the trees.

I should pause here and explain something. Pebble had legs and a mouth, as you probably remember, but he was missing some other very important equipment. He didn’t have any eyes for instance so he couldn’t see where he was going. He also didn’t have any arms, so he couldn’t feel in front of him. As far as Pebble knew, the world was a huge, black, open space that was made for him to run around in. And occasionally wiggle.

So imagine his surprise when he ran into a tree. Pebble quickly went from full speed to no speed at all when he hit the tree, and then he bounced off the tree and he was going negative speed for a little while and then he was on the ground, sitting on what would have been his butt if pebbles had butts. They don’t by the way. Just legs and mouths, and those only sometimes.

“Oh. Wow.” Pebble said. If you were to say that fast, you might notice it also sounds like “Oh. Ow.” But that’s not what he said because it’s actually very hard to hurt a rock. Physically that is. It is easy to hurt their feelings. You will find they are really pretty sensitive if you take the time to get to know one.

Pebble had just learned something new. His world had obstacles.

“Oh! Wow!” He said excitedly. His world had obstacles! What else was there in this world for him to discover? The possibilities seemed endless. But unfortunately for Pebble the half life of fairy dust is quite short and at this point the effects began to wear off. First his mouth and then his legs and then his awareness, and like a gentle dream that you can’t quite remember, he left our world behind and rejoined all the other rocks and pebbles in their world, which is quite separate from ours, and impossible for us to visit.

***

If you happened to have walked on the lovely trail anytime during the rest of that summer, you may have noticed a small pebble, far away from the stream where it belonged, laying in the dirt at the base of a tree, all by itself. The pebble was greyish-whitish with silver speckles that were quite pretty if you took the time to look at them and truly appreciate this pebble for what it was.

That’s what caught the young boy’s eye as he walked up the trail with his father, his little hand clasped tightly in his father’s much larger hand, looking around at the world with his wide eyes because there was so very much for him to see. He saw a little glint of silver as the sun reflected off the pebble just so, angling the light directly into his eyes, but missing his father’s eyes completely. You may wonder why little boys (and girls) see so many things that their fathers don’t? Well that’s just the way the world works, that’s all.

The little boy saw the pebble and he knew right away that he wanted it to be his. He wanted to take it home and stick it on his special shelf with all of his other special things, because he could tell right away that this was a special thing and that’s where it belonged. He stopped walking, pulled free from his father’s hand, walked over to the pebble, and squatted down next to it. He picked up Pebble and he looked at it carefully, felt how smooth and round and perfect it was, and then he put it in his pocket.

And this was a wondrous thing because Pebble was not what he seemed. He was a part of the basement of the world, formed in the fiery furnaces of a young Earth, pummeled by meteorites, covered in lava, not yet touched by water, or life or even an atmosphere. Formed in a sheet of continuous bedrock that had laid bare for eons before being covered with air and then dirt and then lay there for eons more before being forced upward by a cataclysmic collision of continents that had raised the mountains up nearly two miles straight into the air and then he had hung in the air for eons more, before he had broken off of the side of a cliff and fallen a thousand feet to land with a thunderous roar and a cloud of dirt and water that had scared the animals so completely that the forest had been empty of sound and life for nearly a full day. And there he lay while the water and the wind broke him down until he was finally small enough to wash into the stream and down the slope and … well you know the rest of the story. My point is that this little pebble, small enough to pick up and put into your pocket and place onto your shelf was a mighty, wondrous, fearsome object, that has been stamped by time and formed just-so by the most powerful forces on Earth.

Pebble was special. Just like every other rock you see while you are hiking in the mountains. So next time you are walking on a lovely trail by a lively stream, surrounded by huge and majestic mountains, take a moment to admire the little pebbles under your feet and think about where they have come from and the amazing journey that has brought them to where they are today.

Chapter 1 - The Magic Mushroom

Long ago, when the world was still young and soon after the million year rains, lived two brothers. They were still boys and had not yet been given their true-names. In those days your true-name was not given at birth, it had to be discovered. The world was a different place in that time, greener, more mysterious and filled with smells and sounds that have been long forgotten. The brothers were coming to the age at which they would have to travel alone, find their name and return as adults.

“Arsac, can you help?” Ison was dragging cooking wood toward the house. Arsac looked at his brother, smiled, and looked back down again at what he had found. Between his feet was a peculiar mushroom with a short white stem and a red spotted cap. Arsac had seen many mushrooms while helping his mother gather food in the forest, but never one that looked like this. It looked like it had sprung freshly from the ground, needles and dirt still falling from it. As he watched, it began to move in a lazy, spiraling circle and continued to grow. When it had stopped, it was as tall as his head and the stalk was as thick as his thigh.

“Ison, come here!” he called to his brother. Ison dropped the cooking wood and ran to join his brother. “What do you think it is?” he asked with clenched teeth. He was fighting the urge to run and hide from this strange thing. It had stopped moving though, and it seemed less threatening standing still in the morning light. He gathered his courage and reached out to touch it. At his touch, the mushroom jumped back causing both brothers to let out little involuntary yips in their surprise. The mushroom was standing in a new place now, several feet from where it had come out of the ground. If you looked closely what may have been feet seemed to poke from the bottom of the stalk. Maybe not a stalk after all, for as they watched the stalk separated into two long and spindly legs, soft and fibrous, buckling slightly as they moved. As they looked up, they could make out an abdomen, arms, a neck, a small face and the large, red, spotted cap. The mushroom, if that’s what it really was, swayed and buckled slightly under its own weight, then found its strength and stood up straight. As they watched, the limbs grew thicker and more fibrous, the face grew more distinct, and the arms began to move.

Rooted in place, almost as if they had grown from the ground themselves, they stared with mouths open at this thing taking form in front of them.

Chapter 2 – The Mushroom Girl

Standing before them was a fully formed mushroom girl. She was as tall as Arsac and clothed in a dress made of mushroom bits, pine needles, dirt and bark. She had large eyes, a button nose and freckles on each cheek that looked like specks of brown dirt. She blinked a few times, looked at the boys and smiled. Arsac and Ison saw the smile and felt they were safe. Arsac spoke first, “Are you a mushroom or a man?” The mushroom girl blushed and opened her mouth. What came out didn’t sound like words. It sounded like leaves rubbing together, walking in soft wet dirt, and the rustling of things in the brush. The boys both tilted their heads to listen more carefully. The sound must have come from her mouth but it sounded like it came from behind her, behind them, above them and below them all at once. She opened her mouth again and this time it sounded like animals sleeping and smelled of something soft and warm. Ison sat down and crossed his legs. Arsac looked at the mushroom girl and blinked. She opened her mouth once more and this time the noise sounded like human speech, but rich and earthy and nothing like a human girl. “I am neither a mushroom or a man, have you no education?” she said. Arsac was embarrassed and said, “I’ve learned to hunt, to gather plants and nuts and fruits, to read the times of day and the seasons of the year, to speak so that animals come to me and plants grow faster, to tell the weather, and to know when danger is near. But I have never seen something like you.” Ison stood up and said, “Are you a spirit?” The girl laughed and said, “I’m neither spirit nor man but something else instead.” She turned and she walked from them into the trees, never looking back, vanishing into the mixed light of branch and leaf and bush.

Ison and Arsac suddenly noticed that it had gotten dark and realized more time had passed than they knew. The sun was low in the sky and a chill was creeping into the air, so they made their way back toward their home, silent and filled with the wonder of what they had seen.

Nanna knew more than anyone else about the mushroom people. She knew their hidden names, knew the role they had played in the creation of the world, and knew that it was very good luck to meet one. She had never heard of anyone talking to a mushroom girl, so when she heard the boy’s story she went deep into thought. She placed her chin on her hand, closed her eyes and hummed. She hummed an old song she had learned when she discovered her true-name, a song that helped her think and search inside herself for the truth. When she was done humming, she opened her eyes and looked at Arsac, “Tell me again what the mushroom girl said to you? What were her exact words?” Arsac squinched up his eyes into his best remembering face and said, “I am not a spirit or a mushroom or a man, but something else.” Nanna, thought about this longer and said, “Arsac, it is your time. It is clear to me now. This mushroom girl was calling you into the forest to test you and to help you discover your true name. You must go seek her out and learn what you can from her. Meeting a mushroom girl gives you luck, it is time for you to go on your great adventure.” Arsac stood up said, “Yes Nanna,” and ran as fast as he could, Ison running behind him, until he arrived breathless in front of his parents.

Chapter 3 – The Great Adventure

The preparations were complete, his parents had outfitted Arsac with a traveling cloak, a pouch full of food, and a stout stick in case he came upon wild animals. They had spent the night telling stories, singing songs, and eating freshly roasted meats and nuts. Arsac stood by himself on the path that led into the forest facing his parents and Ison. His father had told him he was brave and strong. He didn’t feel brave but he felt proud and excited to get started. With a last farewell, Arsac shifted his pouch, tightened his cloak around himself and turned toward the trees. He walked all morning on paths that he had known since he was very young. Some were so familiar he could remember them from his mother’s back before he had learned to walk on his own.

At mid-day he stopped, sat on a log, and pulled out his lunch. He was on a hillside overlooking a small stream tumbling into the meadows below. For the past hour he had been walking through country that was new to him. Steeper, wilder, filled with trees and plants that he was unfamiliar with. The trees were taller here, their leaves broader than he was used to. He ate in silence, listening to what he could hear around him. He heard his own breathing and the beating of his heart slowing down as he rested. He could hear the stream make a cheerful burble below him as it ran over rocks and under drift-logs. He could imagine the fish hiding in shadow and eddy, but he couldn’t hear them. He could hear the leaves around him rustle slowly in the light breeze. He could see the light streaming from the sun straight above him in its mid-day position. He could imagine its path from the top of the sky, in a slow arc, down to the horizon where it would flare in color and leave the world dark until it returned in the morning.

Arsac was startled from his daydream by the sound of something moving through the trees in front of him. He squinted through the mix of light and shadow but couldn’t see anything. He stood up, shouldered his pouch and moved off the path toward the noise. If it was an animal, perhaps he could talk to it or catch it as a guide. He could hear the noise moving in front of him and occasionally he could see a bush or small tree shake from its passage. When he walked faster he got no closer to it, when he slowed down it did not get far ahead of him. After a few minutes he was far from his path and deep into a strange and wonderful forest. The trees were older here, covered with moss. Ferns grew from the ground and even from the trunks of the trees high above his head. Large leaves blocked most of the light and made it feel later in the day than it was. The air was cooler, moister and easier to breath. The trees became more widely spaced with dense leaves and needles underfoot, making it easy to walk. A feeling of lightness came over Arsac, he felt he could walk all day.

Arsac walked over the top of a small ridge and looked down into a perfect little pool. It was very nearly round, ringed evenly by large trees whose roots went visibly down into the water, drinking deeply. The ground was soft and spongy, a light mist rose from the surface of the water. Arsac knelt beside the pool to take a drink, looked into the water and felt suddenly dizzy. The water was so still that he could see a perfect reflection of himself, the trees and the circle of sky above him. Through the reflection he could look into the unnaturally deep pool. Small points of light swam before his eyes tracing lazy, irregular patterns. As he looked longer, his eyes swam out of focus and the lights became large and blurry. He looked up, shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly tired, he curled up beside the pool, knees pressed against his chest, and fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 4 – The Pool

While Arsac slept, the spirits of the pool stirred from their depths. Their lazy patterns tightened into swirls and arcs of color. They moved up into the pond, churning the surface with currents of shifting water. Emerging from the pool they took the form of small winged fairies. Flying about in the night air, they moved toward the enchanted boy, casting strange flickering shadows that frightened the night animals and caused them to scurry away. They swirled over Arsac, lighting his sleeping face and ruffling his clothes. With tinkling laughter they tugged at his sleeves and the hems of his pants. As a group, they lifted his pouch from the ground, took his stick and rolled his cloak off of him. They took one last look at his sleeping face, giggled and left him with the clothes on his body but nothing more.

Arsac stirred awake with stiff legs and back. Forgetting where he was, he stretched to his full length and said, “Ison, what time is it?” Hearing nothing, sensing he was in a larger space than his bedroom at home, he opened his eyes and looked up into the night. The stars were bright and sharp, no moon and dawn was hours away. He reached for his cloak to wrap himself against the night-chill and found that it was missing. He stood up tingling, alert to danger and realized that his things were gone and he was alone in this strange place.

Feeling small and sad, Arsac crawled to the edge of the pool and looked in. The surface, now calm and still, reflected the stars above him mixed with the lights below. He could see the fairies moving in the water and he knew they had taken his things. He felt they were laughing at him and he felt miserable and stupid. He was on the first night of his adventure and had already been tricked, enchanted and robbed. He could feel their enchantments working on him again but he didn’t care. He would fall asleep and forget his sadness and shame. His eyes grew heavy and the lights once more became large and blurry as they swam across his vision. In the depth of his despair and self-pity, he felt a strong hand grasp his shoulder pull him back from the pool onto firm ground and into full wakefulness.

In the receding glow of the pool, its lights circling into the depths, Arsac saw a sturdy creature with gnarled arms and a thick trunk of a body. Each hand had long fingers with wood-knots for knuckles. His legs were twisted with feet that buried themselves into the ground. He had a long face with a lopsided nose, moss for hair, and large ears. The creature’s voice was thick and gruff but his eyes were kind, “Little human, you should be careful here. Those fairies are mischievous creatures. If you aren’t careful they could make sport of you for weeks. When you finally emerged you’d be naked, confused, half starved and lost.” Arsac, was unsure how to respond, “Who are you?” he said. The creature’s eyes grew wide and his ears waggled back and forth, “Well now, I am one of the tree people. Just look at me and you’ll see the truth of it.” Arsac had to admit that the creature looked very much like a tree and on this night he was willing to accept any magic he saw. “Follow me,” the tree-man said, “I’ll help you out of this place.” He turned and walked with slow, steady steps away from the pool and into the trees. It was dark in the forest and to avoid getting lost, Arsac followed as close as he could. Soon they entered a meadow that was softly lit with silvery light, the grass slightly wet with the pre-morning dew, flowers closed up tight and waiting for the sun. The forest was dark around them, the purple sky bordered by trees and spattered with stars.

The tree-man sat back with a groan and looked at Arsac, “I don’t like those fairies. They move too fast, make too much noise and think too much of themselves. They enjoy themselves at the expense of others. If you ask me, they live with far too little seriousness, everything is a game to them.” He sighed and looked away, “You wouldn’t know it looking at me, but long ago I was a much less serious fellow. I was a young sapling and I loved the touch of the sun, the feel of the rain on my leaves, the good dirt beneath me. Ah, the making of flowers and fruit, the feel of pollen, releasing my seeds into the earth.” He looked back at Arsac, “But I am forgetting myself. Life is a serious business and you must treat it seriously if you wish to live a good, long life. I am telling you this so that you understand that the ways of the fairies are not the right ways to live.” He closed his eyes and became silent.

Arsac, couldn’t tell if he was going to speak again or if he had fallen asleep. Perhaps he had returned to being a tree, in fact he looked more like a tree now than ever. Arsac, worked up his courage and said, “Excuse me, uhm, Mr. Tree. I understand what you mean about fairies. It isn’t nice to make fun of people and take their things. I’ve known boys like that, they would run after the smallest, shyest, littlest ones making fun of them and hoping to see them cry. If being serious means you treat others nicely, then I am happy to be serious.” The tree-man opened his eyes and smiled, “You are a good boy, I can tell. Did you say they took things from you? What did they take?” Arsac told him about his cloak, pouch and stick. The tree-man seemed especially offended by the taking of the stick, “I have a good feeling about you, and we cannot let the theft of any tree-part go unpunished. I will show you how to sneak into the home of the fairies and get your things back. According to ancient fairy law, if you are able to retrieve your things you may take three items of your choosing from the fairies in return. But be careful, if they awake and find you in their home they will be very angry. They have strong magic and within their home I cannot help you. If you return without being discovered, you will be safe and the fairies will never have the power to harm you again.”

Arsac considered this and asked, “How do I find the fairy home? How do I keep them from waking up and discovering me?” The tree-man narrowed his eyes, his face grew very serious, looking even more like the wood of a tree, “The entrance is here in this meadow, it is why I brought you here. You must move quickly and silently, like the mouse in the ground. I will show you where to go and then you are on your own. Are you ready?”

Chapter 5 – The Fairy House

While they were talking, the sky had turned pink with the new dawn and the stars had faded. The tree-man took Arsac to the edge of the meadow where a curious looking house stood at the boundary of the trees and grass. The house was made of strips of bark with twigs placed over the entrance to make a door. A path of flat stones led from a small garden to the house. The scene was both inviting and lonely, like finding a boarded up home when you are lost and need shelter from the coming night.

The tree-man stopped and looked at Arsac, “This is an old, nearly forgotten entrance to the fairy’s house. They have grown accustomed to using the pool and haven’t thought about this doorway for many years. Fairies are thoughtless and easily forget things, you’ll see.” As he walked away across the meadow he said, “Don’t worry, things will go well for you, fairies are lazy and sleep during the day. Retrieve your things carefully and be careful not to wake them.”

Arsac knelt before the entrance and began to pull the sticks away so that he could get through. He could tell the entrance had been unused for a long time, all types of insect had made their home in the bark and twigs. He felt nervous as he worked, “What will happen to me if the fairies wake up and find me in their home? They’ve already taken my things, what else might they do to me?” He stood up with his heart beating hard in his ears. Maybe he should give up and return home while he still could. “What would my parents say if I ran home having lost my things and without finding my true-name?” He knew his parents and Ison would be disappointed in him if he quit now and returned without finishing what he’d set out to do. He knelt down and peered into the doorway, it was just large enough for him to fit through if he crouched. The house was dark inside and he could feel cold drafts that smelt of earth and rotting wood. Mastering his fear, Arsac pushed his way through the entrance and entered the dark room.

He crouched for a few minutes, breathing rapidly, waiting for magic to envelop him or enchant him in a strange way. After a while his eyes adjusted to the dark and he realized he was safe for the moment. Looking around he saw a small table and a couple of chairs covered with dust, dirt and fallen bark from the ceiling. There were three doors on the far wall, one of which was open and revealed stairs that sank deeper into the darkness. Arsac was much larger than a fairy and he nearly filled the small room, so he moved carefully in a crouch to the doors. The two closed doors were locked tight and would not budge in their frames so he entered the open door and began to climb down the stairs. Each step was very small so he had to be careful not to slip and fall. Using the dirt walls and ceiling to keep his balance he moved slowly downwards. As he crept down he noticed the air growing cooler and moister. Arsac wasn’t in complete darkness, the way was lit by small glowing bulbs growing from the dirt walls. He was cramped and uncomfortable and didn’t know how much further the stairs would lead, so the dim light gave him some comfort.

Eventually he came to a plain room at the bottom of the stairs. It had a stone floor and smelled of damp earth. Arsac felt that the weight of all the dirt above was pressing down upon him, it was hard to breath and his heart was pounding hard. He could feel the touch of magic about him, like spider webs brushing against his face. His skin tingled and the top of his head began to crawl and itch. At the end of the room was an ornate metal door with intricate, curling decorations carved both into the door and into the stone frame it sat in. The doorknob was shaped like a small head with a grinning face. In the dim light Arsac couldn’t tell if the smile was kind or hostile. Trembling slightly, Arsac put his hand on the doorknob and began to turn it. To his surprise it was warm to the touch and turned easily. The door opened smoothly and flooded the small room with a radiant light that blinded his eyes, they had grown so accustomed to the dark.

Squinting and shading his eyes, Arsac tried to make out what lay before him. After a moment he could see a large room, taller than it was wide, and perfectly round. The ceiling appeared to be made of water, as if he was looking up at the surface of a pond. The space between him and the water was filled with spiraling lights that cast a flickering happy glow on everything below. They pulsed and chased each other, changed colors, and created patterns in the air. Below the lights, tumbled on the soft ground, were the fairies. They were piled in a heap, sleeping and snoring little snores. Their wings were like transparent butterfly wings, shining with reflected color and etched through with dark leaf-like veins. Each fairy’s wings opened and closed with its tiny breaths, keeping time to the snores.

Arsac held his breath, he didn’t know how soundly the fairies slept. He looked past the pile of sleeping fairies and saw his things against the wall. His stick lay upon his pouch and crumpled cloak. He would have to walk carefully and silently around the fairies to the far end of the room in order to get what they had stolen from him.

Chapter 6 – Fairies

Arsac stepped on tiptoe into the room with the sleeping fairies. Leaving the door open behind him he kept the wall to his back and began to shuffle sideways around the edge of the room. He kept his eyes on the fairies heaped in the middle of the room and moved as silently as he could. The floor was uneven and slanted in places, which made it hard for him to place his feet without making noise.

He was halfway around the room, feeling exposed and easy to see in the bright light, when the fairies began to stir. He stopped and held his breath, willing himself to be as small and invisible as possible. With tangled limbs and sputtering breath, a few of the fairies turned over in their sleep. This movement caused one of the fairies at the edge of the pile to be pushed onto the floor with a light thud. The fairy’s eyes fluttered and a few sleep-words came out of his mouth, “Orange cat, let go. I want it. Don’t go under…” and then he fell back into a deep sleep. Arsac exhaled a slow, trembling breath and when he was sure that all was still again he continued his careful movement around the room.

After what seemed like many minutes, Arsac stood before his stick, pouch and cloak. He turned his back to the fairies and reached down to take the stick. As soon as he had touched it, the room exploded into a mix of light and the sound of fluttering wings. “What have we here?” he heard a hundred tiny voices ask. He spun around to see all of the fairies aloft, their wings beating quickly to keep them in the air. Like hummingbirds they darted from the center of the room, peered in his face and then out to the opposite edges. They flew directly at him, only to veer away at the last minute, delighting in his startled reaction. Scared and unsure of what would happen, Arsac sank to his knees and covered his head with his hands.

After a few minutes he felt tiny hands on his fingers pulling him up to stand. A few of the fairies hovered before him, the rest darted around chasing the lights above. “Are you here for your wood thing?” one of them asked in a piping little voice. “We don’t like the wood things, they are much too serious, they will never play with us”, the fairy said, “we are glad you have come to take it back.” Another fairy darted forward, her face small and round, “Will you play with us now, we love to play!” The third fairy flew up and pulled on Arsac’s nose, “Yes play with us, you will see what fun games we have,” and flew away again to join the others. The two remaining fairies urged Arsac into the center of the room where they grabbed his hands and spun him around laughing. The fairies were small but their magic made them strong, Arsac could not resist their wishes. As he was spun, more of the fairies came down to join the laughter and fun.

Arsac collapsed on the floor dizzy from spinning and the fairies laughed and clapped their little hands. They grabbed him and pulled him up again, forming a ring around him. The fairies each danced, showing off their flight, their colors, and their beautiful little clothes. They sprinkled dust that flashed and sparkled in the air. They did loops and spins, each competing for his favor. When he looked at one of the fairies others would swoop in jealous and try to steal his attention with ever more flamboyant flying and magical displays. This game continued so long that Arsac became very tired and wanted nothing more than to lay his head down and sleep. Any time his eyes began to close a fairy would fly in, pinch him awake and begin to show off again.

Eventually the fairies became tired of their antics and flew off in groups to find something new to entertain them. Some of the fairies flew straight up into the water above, lighting it up and then passing out into the night. Three fairies remained behind; they lay on their stomachs with tiny heads propped in little hands. The girl fairy with the round face asked, “How did you find us here?” Arsac was scared to tell them the truth but knew of nothing else to say, “The tree-man helped me find your house so I could retrieve my things. He said that if I woke you up you would be angry. Will you be angry with me?” One of the other fairies answered, “Do we look angry? We never get angry we only love to play and have fun!” The fairy laughed, “Life is for fun, what else in the world matters?” Arsac though about this and then asked, “If you only play and have fun, then why did you put me to sleep, take my things and leave me alone and cold?” The three fairies laughed, “Because it was fun! You should have seen your face, we had so much fun taking your things while you were asleep.” One of the fairies jumped onto his knees and continued, “You see, we are not like those serious wood people, we have fun and love every minute of our life. We have so much fun every night and we never stop moving until it is time for us to sleep and then we wake up and start all over again. If you want to love life you should be lighthearted and laugh whenever you can. I am telling you this so you understand that if you are serious all the time you will never have any fun at all!” Arsac thought about this and said, “I have seen the old people who are so serious that they no longer enjoy their lives. They are always waiting for something that never comes. If being lighthearted means enjoying life like a child and never forgetting the beauty around you, then I am happy to be lighthearted.”

After speaking with him, the fairies seemed to lose interest in Arsac. They flew in groups into the water above and then out of sight. Arsac was left alone in the room, lit by the colorful, moving lights overhead. He thought about what the tree-man had said, that he could take three things in return for what was stolen from him. He looked around and saw fairy things spread on the floor where they had been left behind. He realized he didn’t want to take anything, he was happy to have his things back and wanted to leave before anything more could happen to him. Still weary from the dancing and play, he gathered his belongings, walked through the door and back up the stairs to the world above. When he emerged, blinking in the light, he saw the mushroom girl standing in the meadow waiting for him. She looked older than before and almost pretty in a mushroomy kind of way. She smiled at him and motioned for him to come near.

Chapter 7 – The Mushroom People

“Hello Arsac,” the mushroom girl said. “It is almost time for you to get your true-name, but first I must tell you about the mushroom people.” She paused and looked at him smiling, putting him at ease after his recent adventures, “I may look young but my memories go back a long time. The mushroom people are magic, and so we share our memories with magic. We are not like men who have to share memories with words and stories.” She closed her eyes and continued, “We were the first creatures to come to this world. We came after the million year rains turned fire into rock and steam into sulfurous air. We planted our roots and drank deeply of the water that covered the land. We crushed the rock into dirt and made the earth ready for plants to grow. We breathed in the sulfur and made the air suitable for animals to breath. We covered the world as far as you could see and turned it into what it is today. Without us, no plant or animal could walk this land and live. Our great work is behind us but we still do much. We change dead wood and leaves into soil for new life. We change the old life into new and watch over the cycles of birth and death. You will see us on the logs in the forest, high in the trees and springing from the rich black dirt at your feet. You can see where magic pools on the ground like water, for that is where we grow.”

The mushroom girl paused and opened her eyes again, “Now that you know about me and my people, tell me what you have learned these past days.” Arsac thought about the way he had felt laying next to the pool. He thought about the serious tree-man and the playful fairies. He thought about Ison back home and how they would fight over things that seemed childish to him now. He thought about his parents and how they had taught him to respect the life around him and to be mindful of his actions so that they wouldn’t hurt others. He looked at the mushroom girl and said, “The tree-man doesn’t like playfulness and thinks that everyone should be serious. He helped me, but he also seemed old and sad.” Arsac was very tired but he could see how kind the mushroom girl was and he wanted to answer her questions, “The fairies were very playful but they don’t think about other people. They didn’t care how I felt when they stole my things and they didn’t care that I was tired of their play, all they cared about was their fun.” Arsac felt as if he had grown older since he had left his home and he was proud of his answer, “I think you must be both serious and playful. You must enjoy life so that you don’t grow sad and forget how wonderful everything is, but you also need to consider how your actions may harm or help the people around you.”

The mushroom girl looked very proud of Arsac, “Yes, you’ve learned a lot since I last saw you. You have learned of the need for balance. When we are young we tend to be playful and never think about more than ourselves. We may hurt those around us and never know or care about the consequences of our actions. As we grow old we may lose our joy in life, instead dwelling on the hurts we have given others and how we have been hurt in return. Your great task in life will be to learn to balance the opposing forces within you. Your great calling in life will be to teach others how to achieve balance within themselves and in their lives with each other.” She smiled again and said, “You are ready for your true-name. Your life will be about discovering and keeping balance, can you guess what your name truly is?”

Arsac thought for a moment and then he knew, “I am Amani aren’t I? It is the true-word for balance.” The mushroom girl nodded her head, “Travel well Amani, until we meet again,” she turned and walked out of the meadow. Arsac who was now Amani tightened his cloak around himself, shifted his pouch and headed toward home.

That is the story of how Amani came to know who he was and what he was meant for in this world.

The lab was quiet, all of the typical noise and movement and energy having faded with the end of the day. Nearly everyone had gone home to their families, to their dinners and their feeds, each scientist reverting back to ordinary life once the lab coat came off and the pressures of work faded. Those who stayed behind were the most dedicated, or the ones without family, or the ones who stayed at work to avoid facing something even more painful waiting for them back home.

Jill rubbed her eyes and looked at the analysis one more time. She knew she could find a pattern in it if she looked long enough. With enough time, she’d start to see the connections that had been eluding her. Then she could figure out the right questions to ask of the data-set; the correct paths to follow through the massive maze of information that her team had been collecting.

`The tip of her tongue pushed up against the back of her teeth and there was a deep crease between her brows as she leaned in toward the data-model projected in the space over her desk – as if getting closer to the data would make any difference. A few strands of her brown hair had sprung out of her ponytail and were hanging over her eyes. She pushed them back behind an ear, her mind totally focused on what she was doing.

With a sharp, percussive exhale of pent in breath, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, her dark eyes focused out to infinity. What was she missing? She felt so close. Something was prickling in the back of her mind, and she knew from experience that if she could let it germinate, some beautiful new idea would flower forth. And this one felt like a doozy. Like the breakthrough she’d been waiting for.

“Burning the midnight oil again, Jill?” a man’s voice asked from just behind her.

Jill let out an undignified squeak and shot straight up out of her chair, her fight or flight instincts on full display, balanced precariously between sprinting toward the exit and striking out at the source of the voice. But it was just Matt, sneaking up on her. Again. She forced her arms down to her sides, hoping Matt hadn’t noticed both her hands balled up into fists.

He stood with his feet planted confidently shoulder-width apart, hands crossed over an excessively fit chest, his green eyes appraising her with smug satisfaction. She noticed that his hair was starting to grey again. A sign, she thought, that he couldn’t afford to keep up with his treatments. Nobody went grey on purpose these days.

Matt was the closest thing she had to an enemy at the lab. She didn’t have enemies. Not normally. But she had a sneaking suspicion that he was trying to steal her research and claim it as his own. He was on the cleared team, working in the cleared facility. Something for the Department of Defense, or maybe it was Homeland Security. She didn’t care. They were all the same to her. A bunch of ethically suspect sell-outs conducting research that would be turned against humanity, either as weapons or as a better way to spy, subvert, or manipulate other human beings. She hated it. Matt wasn’t a scientist. He was a hack. And he had a bad habit of looking over her shoulder and showing up when she least expected him. He was a creep.

“Hi, Matt. Yeah, I’m working late tonight. I, uh, have something I need to finish up,” she said.

“What are you working on? Maybe I can help,” he responded with obvious enthusiasm.

“No, that’s ok, I was just getting ready to leave. Thanks anyway.”

“Maybe next time,” he said, disappointment coloring his reply. “We really should work together more, you know.”

“No Matt, I don’t think so. Not in this lifetime.”

He looked genuinely chagrined, and for a moment she almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Then she remembered the time she’d found him looking through her data-node. Or the time he’d come instead of IT when she’d needed someone to deal with an upgrade procedure, and she’d caught him inside her research folders. No, she didn’t feel sorry for him at all. Creep.

She turned her back on him, shut down her lab-station and started stuffing her things into her bag. She could hear him breathing behind her. Breathing, and shuffling his feet. She turned slowly, her hands full, and gave him as much of a glare as she thought she could get away with. “Do you need something Matt? I would think you’d want to get back to work, or you know, go home.”

“Well yeah, it's just…” he trailed off.

She didn’t need this. She really didn’t want to be dealing with Matt right now. Whatever was germinating in her mind required time and space, and what she didn’t need was to be stuck here dealing with this crap.

“Whatever it is, it can wait, right? I need to leave.”

“Yeah, ok, it can wait. But tomorrow, first thing, come to my office, will you? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

When she looked hesitant, he leaned forward, crowding into her personal space. “Promise me, ok? You’ll come to my office? It can wait till tomorrow, but it's important. It's something you need to know.”

“Whatever, Matt,” she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes, I’ll come by in the morning. But right now… I just need to get home.”

Matt stepped aside. He still looked hesitant, but he seemed willing to let the conversation end. Jill took one last look at him and walked away from her desk, down the hall, and toward the elevators. There were a few lights on in other parts of the lab, and she could hear other people working, but it wasn’t enough to make her feel completely comfortable. She could feel the pressure of his eyes on the back of her head all the way out. Even after she’d turned the corner and knew she was out of sight, she still had an uncomfortable feeling in her gut, telling her that something wasn’t right.

Back in the lab, Matt stared at the last spot Jill had occupied before she’d turned the corner and disappeared. The look on his face was intense, his hands were clenched, and he was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He took a moment to moderate his breathing and settled back down onto his heels. He ground his teeth, jaw muscles standing out in ropy cords. A flash of what might have been anger, but just as easily could have been fear, crossed his face. Then he settled his expression into the bland placidity of a professional poker player. His bluffing face. His lying face. Commander Tros was waiting for him to report back and he would have to play it carefully. Very carefully.

When Matt left the room it was quiet except for a slight clicking emanating from the lab equipment as it sorted, classified, and labeled genetic material. In the next room machines were using advanced gene editing techniques to enumerate small changes to the DNA, one allele at a time. They incubated the combinations, documented the results, and then destroyed each sample of generated tissue in turn.

Every combination tried, each classification made, every single data point gathered, took the project one step closer to its ultimate goal of creating a fully reprogrammable human. A human who could be modified to be anything wanted of it. Stronger, smarter, healthier. A human that would not be held back by doubts or worries. A human that would do what it was told without question or complaint.

First, the scientists needed to figure out how to create a viable human clone. Once that breakthrough was complete, the rest would come in due time. Matt knew that this was true; like knowing that the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning. His whole team knew it was true. It’s what they were all waiting for.

Standing in the kitchen, her preparations complete, Mary knew she should take a moment to enjoy the calm before the storm. Elizabeth was in her bedroom playing with her toys, the presents were wrapped, and the cake was cooling on the counter. Mary was pointedly ignoring the fact that there was a swarm of news-drones at the end of the block. She would take this moment for herself. She would try to relax.

She knew she was too old to be the mother of a seven-year-old, but that was the whole point wasn’t it? It was because she couldn’t conceive that she’d chosen to take this route. The protests, the blaring headlines, the violence in the streets, none of that mattered, not when compared with the miracle of her daughter – her perfect seven-year-old girl. And how could she not be perfect? She was a marvel of science, the shining outcome of the largest research project conducted in the history of mankind.

Mary placed her palms flat on the countertop, looked out the window over her garden, and smiled. She was content. More than content. She was for all intents and purposes immortal. If that wasn’t satisfying, she didn’t know what was. When she’d been chosen as a participant in the human trials, she had felt unbelievably lucky. She could finally have the child she so desperately wanted. It seemed impossible that seven years had already flown by. All she knew was she loved her daughter with all her heart.

She had almost given her daughter the same name as herself, but it had seemed like a step too far, an expression of arrogance that might tempt fate and tip them both into disaster. She’d decided that clones shouldn’t be named after their parents, so Elizabeth had been given her own name. Mary was determined that Elizabeth would be her own, unique person.

As she was thinking these thoughts, the view out the window flickered, a panorama of dense, grey buildings bleeding through the fruit trees and garden in her backyard. Mary was surprised by the sudden failure. She hadn’t ever been shown the unfiltered view without having chosen it. She triggered her interface, reinstating her preferred filter. The buildings blurred and fuzzed, then blinked out of existence, her backyard returning to greenery.

She watched for a moment longer to see if it would happen again. When the filter seemed stable, she turned away from the window. “Elizabeth! Come down! Are you ready for the party?”

When Elizabeth didn’t respond, Mary’s face creased into an unaccustomed frown. She walked through the dining room to the long, white-carpeted stairs, and called up toward her daughter’s room. “Elizabeth, can you hear me?”

Still no response.

This silence was unlike her. Elizabeth was usually so responsive. Maybe it had to do with turning seven? Mary thought back to her own seventh birthday. Had she been worried about turning seven? She honestly couldn’t remember. Raising a clone was so confusing at times. It was hard to stay inside her own head.

Mary checked her watch. There was still thirty minutes until the first guests would arrive. She walked up the stairs to the second floor, trailing her fingers along the hand-rail. She stopped at Elizabeth’s room, placing one hand gently on the door. “Elizabeth, can I come in?”

The room was silent.

A sharp pang of anxiety spiked through her. The feeling was there and gone in an instant, a liquid flutter in her stomach. Surely she was overreacting, but there was something about the dense silence emanating from her daughter’s room that seemed particularly ominous.

“Elizabeth?” she called through the door. Even as she said it, she realized that her voice had come out louder and more frantic than she’d meant for it to.

She waited a moment longer, and when there was still no response, she made up her mind. Mary pushed the door open and entered the room to find her daughter sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a doll in each hand, head down, her hair falling in a loose cascade over her face.

Mary took a deep breath, one hand on her chest to cover the frightened beating of her heart.

“Honey, is everything ok?”

Elizabeth was oddly still, nothing like her usual boisterous self. Mary tried to tell herself that it was a normal seven-year-old thing. It couldn’t be anything too serious. She forced herself to calm down as she crouched in front of Elizabeth. When there was still no response, she pushed her daughter’s thick brown hair back over her forehead, revealing her eyes, surreptitiously checking for a fever with the palm of her hand.

“Are you nervous about your birthday party?”

Elizabeth didn’t respond. For a long, pregnant moment the room was utterly silent, a frozen tableau of worry and doubt. Then Elizabeth lifted her head in one smooth movement and looked Mary in the eye. “Who are you?” Elizabeth asked, her face twisted with some intense emotion.

It was an expression Mary had never seen on her daughter's face before. The anxiety returned, sharp and cruel, twisting within her. Something was wrong. She knew it. Elizabeth wasn’t well.

“Honey, listen to me, do you feel sick?” Mary asked, tripping over her words in her concern.

Elizabeth’s eyes darted around the room, as if she was trying to figure out where she was, before landing back on Mary. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked.

“It’s time to get ready for your friends. Everyone is coming for your party,” Mary said, trying to return a sense of normalcy back to the conversation.

“Party? Where the hell am I?” Elizabeth asked, her voice rising.

Mary pressed her hand to Elizabeth’s forehead. It was still cool to the touch, but it wasn’t enough to steady her nerves. Taking a deep breath, she picked Elizabeth up. It was time to talk to the doctors at the lab. They had told her that if anything unusual happened she needed to bring Elizabeth in to them immediately. This definitely qualified as unusual.

As soon as Mary picked her up, Elizabeth started to struggle, kicking and twisting to get free. Mary rushed toward the stairs, one hand gripping Elizabeth around the middle, the other grasping the hand-rail as she fought for control. Partway down the stairs, Elizabeth suddenly went limp. It was such a surprising change that Mary stopped in her tracks, fearing the worst, the animal part of her brain crying out in shock and alarm. But she found that Elizabeth was looking at her calmly now, her eyes flat as she spoke.

“Mother?” she asked.

“What is it darling?” Mary responded, trying desperately to keep the rising panic out of her voice.

“Put me down,” Elizabeth demanded.

“We need to see the doctor, honey. It’s important.”

“Put me down,” Elizabeth repeated, her voice taking a deeper tone. Commanding.

At that moment, Mary’s mother, Elizabeth’s grandmother, opened the front door and bustled in. “Hello, sweetheart! Happy Birthday!” she called out. She was carrying a bag of presents, beaming up at them where they were standing on the stairs, unaware that anything unusual was going on.

“Mother! Thank God you’re here,” Mary began, but she didn’t get a chance to finish, because at that moment Elizabeth grabbed the metal chopstick from her mother’s stylish bun and stabbed it into the exposed flesh between Mary’s neck and shoulder.

For one long moment, Mary gawked at the end of the chopstick sticking out just above her dress line, blood welling up and starting to run down her chest. And then her legs gave out and she toppled forward, falling down the stairs toward Grandma who stood at the bottom, eyes shocked, mouth open, a scream stuck in her throat.

Chapter 1 : World Zero, 2088

Standing in the kitchen, her preparations complete, Mary knew she should take a moment to enjoy the calm before the storm. Elizabeth was in her bedroom playing with her toys, the presents were wrapped, and the cake was cooling on the counter. Mary was pointedly ignoring the fact that there was a swarm of news-drones at the end of the block. She would take this moment for herself. She would try to relax.

She knew she was too old to be the mother of a seven-year-old, but that was the whole point wasn’t it? It was because she couldn’t conceive that she’d chosen to take this route. The protests, the blaring headlines, the violence in the streets, none of that mattered, not when compared with the miracle of her daughter – her perfect seven-year-old girl. And how could she not be perfect? She was a marvel of science, the shining outcome of the largest research project conducted in the history of mankind.

Mary placed her palms flat on the countertop, looked out the window over her garden, and smiled. She was content. More than content. She was for all intents and purposes immortal. If that wasn’t satisfying, she didn’t know what was. When she’d been chosen as a participant in the human trials, she had felt unbelievably lucky. She could finally have the child she so desperately wanted. It seemed impossible that seven years had already flown by. All she knew was she loved her daughter with all her heart.

She had almost given her daughter the same name as herself, but it had seemed like a step too far, an expression of arrogance that might tempt fate and tip them both into disaster. She’d decided that clones shouldn’t be named after their parents, so Elizabeth had been given her own name. Mary was determined that Elizabeth would be her own, unique person.

As she was thinking these thoughts, the view out the window flickered, a panorama of dense, grey buildings bleeding through the fruit trees and garden in her backyard. Mary was surprised by the sudden failure. She hadn’t ever been shown the unfiltered view without having chosen it. She triggered her interface, reinstating her preferred filter. The buildings blurred and fuzzed, then blinked out of existence, her backyard returning to greenery.

She watched for a moment longer to see if it would happen again. When the filter seemed stable, she turned away from the window. “Elizabeth! Come down! Are you ready for the party?”

When Elizabeth didn’t respond, Mary’s face creased into an unaccustomed frown. She walked through the dining room to the long, white-carpeted stairs, and called up toward her daughter’s room. “Elizabeth, can you hear me?”

Still no response.

This silence was unlike her. Elizabeth was usually so responsive. Maybe it had to do with turning seven? Mary thought back to her own seventh birthday. Had she been worried about turning seven? She honestly couldn’t remember. Raising a clone was so confusing at times. It was hard to stay inside her own head.

Mary checked her watch. There was still thirty minutes until the first guests would arrive. She walked up the stairs to the second floor, trailing her fingers along the hand-rail. She stopped at Elizabeth’s room, placing one hand gently on the door. “Elizabeth, can I come in?”

The room was silent.

A sharp pang of anxiety spiked through her. The feeling was there and gone in an instant, a liquid flutter in her stomach. Surely she was overreacting, but there was something about the dense silence emanating from her daughter’s room that seemed particularly ominous.

“Elizabeth?” she called through the door. Even as she said it, she realized that her voice had come out louder and more frantic than she’d meant for it to.

She waited a moment longer, and when there was still no response, she made up her mind. Mary pushed the door open and entered the room to find her daughter sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a doll in each hand, head down, her hair falling in a loose cascade over her face.

Mary took a deep breath, one hand on her chest to cover the frightened beating of her heart.

“Honey, is everything ok?”

Elizabeth was oddly still, nothing like her usual boisterous self. Mary tried to tell herself that it was a normal seven-year-old thing. It couldn’t be anything too serious. She forced herself to calm down as she crouched in front of Elizabeth. When there was still no response, she pushed her daughter’s thick brown hair back over her forehead, revealing her eyes, surreptitiously checking for a fever with the palm of her hand.

“Are you nervous about your birthday party?”

Elizabeth didn’t respond. For a long, pregnant moment the room was utterly silent, a frozen tableau of worry and doubt. Then Elizabeth lifted her head in one smooth movement and looked Mary in the eye. “Who are you?” Elizabeth asked, her face twisted with some intense emotion.

It was an expression Mary had never seen on her daughter’s face before. The anxiety returned, sharp and cruel, twisting within her. Something was wrong. She knew it. Elizabeth wasn’t well.

“Honey, listen to me, do you feel sick?” Mary asked, tripping over her words in her concern.

Elizabeth’s eyes darted around the room, as if she was trying to figure out where she was, before landing back on Mary. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked.

“It’s time to get ready for your friends. Everyone is coming for your party,” Mary said, trying to return a sense of normalcy back to the conversation.

“Party? Where the hell am I?” Elizabeth asked, her voice rising.

Mary pressed her hand to Elizabeth’s forehead. It was still cool to the touch, but it wasn’t enough to steady her nerves. Taking a deep breath, she picked Elizabeth up. It was time to talk to the doctors at the lab. They had told her that if anything unusual happened she needed to bring Elizabeth in to them immediately. This definitely qualified as unusual.

As soon as Mary picked her up, Elizabeth started to struggle, kicking and twisting to get free. Mary rushed toward the stairs, one hand gripping Elizabeth around the middle, the other grasping the hand-rail as she fought for control. Partway down the stairs, Elizabeth suddenly went limp. It was such a surprising change that Mary stopped in her tracks, fearing the worst, the animal part of her brain crying out in shock and alarm. But she found that Elizabeth was looking at her calmly now, her eyes flat as she spoke.

“Mother?” she asked.

“What is it darling?” Mary responded, trying desperately to keep the rising panic out of her voice.

“Put me down,” Elizabeth demanded.

“We need to see the doctor, honey. It’s important.”

“Put me down,” Elizabeth repeated, her voice taking a deeper tone. Commanding.

At that moment, Mary’s mother, Elizabeth’s grandmother, opened the front door and bustled in. “Hello, sweetheart! Happy Birthday!” she called out. She was carrying a bag of presents, beaming up at them where they were standing on the stairs, unaware that anything unusual was going on.

“Mother! Thank God you’re here,” Mary began, but she didn’t get a chance to finish, because at that moment Elizabeth grabbed the metal chopstick from her mother’s stylish bun and stabbed it into the exposed flesh between Mary’s neck and shoulder.

For one long moment, Mary gawked at the end of the chopstick sticking out just above her dress line, blood welling up and starting to run down her chest. And then her legs gave out and she toppled forward, falling down the stairs toward Grandma who stood at the bottom, eyes shocked, mouth open, a scream stuck in her throat.

Chapter 2 : World Zero, 2080

The lab was quiet, all of the typical noise and movement and energy having faded with the end of the day. Nearly everyone had gone home to their families, to their dinners and their feeds, each scientist reverting back to ordinary life once the lab coat came off and the pressures of work faded. Those who stayed behind were the most dedicated, or the ones without family, or the ones who stayed at work to avoid facing something even more painful waiting for them back home.

Jill rubbed her eyes and looked at the analysis one more time. She knew she could find a pattern in it if she looked long enough. With enough time, she’d start to see the connections that had been eluding her. Then she could figure out the right questions to ask of the data-set; the correct paths to follow through the massive maze of information that her team had been collecting.

`The tip of her tongue pushed up against the back of her teeth and there was a deep crease between her brows as she leaned in toward the data-model projected in the space over her desk – as if getting closer to the data would make any difference. A few strands of her brown hair had sprung out of her ponytail and were hanging over her eyes. She pushed them back behind an ear, her mind totally focused on what she was doing.

With a sharp, percussive exhale of pent in breath, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, her dark eyes focused out to infinity. What was she missing? She felt so close. Something was prickling in the back of her mind, and she knew from experience that if she could let it germinate, some beautiful new idea would flower forth. And this one felt like a doozy. Like the breakthrough she’d been waiting for.

“Burning the midnight oil again, Jill?” a man’s voice asked from just behind her.

Jill let out an undignified squeak and shot straight up out of her chair, her fight or flight instincts on full display, balanced precariously between sprinting toward the exit and striking out at the source of the voice. But it was just Matt, sneaking up on her. Again. She forced her arms down to her sides, hoping Matt hadn’t noticed both her hands balled up into fists.

He stood with his feet planted confidently shoulder-width apart, hands crossed over an excessively fit chest, his green eyes appraising her with smug satisfaction. She noticed that his hair was starting to grey again. A sign, she thought, that he couldn’t afford to keep up with his treatments. Nobody went grey on purpose these days.

Matt was the closest thing she had to an enemy at the lab. She didn’t have enemies. Not normally. But she had a sneaking suspicion that he was trying to steal her research and claim it as his own. He was on the cleared team, working in the cleared facility. Something for the Department of Defense, or maybe it was Homeland Security. She didn’t care. They were all the same to her. A bunch of ethically suspect sell-outs conducting research that would be turned against humanity, either as weapons or as a better way to spy, subvert, or manipulate other human beings. She hated it. Matt wasn’t a scientist. He was a hack. And he had a bad habit of looking over her shoulder and showing up when she least expected him. He was a creep.

“Hi, Matt. Yeah, I’m working late tonight. I, uh, have something I need to finish up,” she said.

“What are you working on? Maybe I can help,” he responded with obvious enthusiasm.

“No, that’s ok, I was just getting ready to leave. Thanks anyway.”

“Maybe next time,” he said, disappointment coloring his reply. “We really should work together more, you know.”

“No Matt, I don’t think so. Not in this lifetime.”

He looked genuinely chagrined, and for a moment she almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Then she remembered the time she’d found him looking through her data-node. Or the time he’d come instead of IT when she’d needed someone to deal with an upgrade procedure, and she’d caught him inside her research folders. No, she didn’t feel sorry for him at all. Creep.

She turned her back on him, shut down her lab-station and started stuffing her things into her bag. She could hear him breathing behind her. Breathing, and shuffling his feet. She turned slowly, her hands full, and gave him as much of a glare as she thought she could get away with. “Do you need something Matt? I would think you’d want to get back to work, or you know, go home.”

“Well yeah, it’s just…” he trailed off.

She didn’t need this. She really didn’t want to be dealing with Matt right now. Whatever was germinating in her mind required time and space, and what she didn’t need was to be stuck here dealing with this crap.

“Whatever it is, it can wait, right? I need to leave.”

“Yeah, ok, it can wait. But tomorrow, first thing, come to my office, will you? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

When she looked hesitant, he leaned forward, crowding into her personal space. “Promise me, ok? You’ll come to my office? It can wait till tomorrow, but it’s important. It’s something you need to know.”

“Whatever, Matt,” she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes, I’ll come by in the morning. But right now… I just need to get home.”

Matt stepped aside. He still looked hesitant, but he seemed willing to let the conversation end. Jill took one last look at him and walked away from her desk, down the hall, and toward the elevators. There were a few lights on in other parts of the lab, and she could hear other people working, but it wasn’t enough to make her feel completely comfortable. She could feel the pressure of his eyes on the back of her head all the way out. Even after she’d turned the corner and knew she was out of sight, she still had an uncomfortable feeling in her gut, telling her that something wasn’t right.

Back in the lab, Matt stared at the last spot Jill had occupied before she’d turned the corner and disappeared. The look on his face was intense, his hands were clenched, and he was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He took a moment to moderate his breathing and settled back down onto his heels. He ground his teeth, jaw muscles standing out in ropy cords. A flash of what might have been anger, but just as easily could have been fear, crossed his face. Then he settled his expression into the bland placidity of a professional poker player. His bluffing face. His lying face. Commander Tros was waiting for him to report back and he would have to play it carefully. Very carefully.

When Matt left the room it was quiet except for a slight clicking emanating from the lab equipment as it sorted, classified, and labeled genetic material. In the next room machines were using advanced gene editing techniques to enumerate small changes to the DNA, one allele at a time. They incubated the combinations, documented the results, and then destroyed each sample of generated tissue in turn.

Every combination tried, each classification made, every single data point gathered, took the project one step closer to its ultimate goal of creating a fully reprogrammable human. A human who could be modified to be anything wanted of it. Stronger, smarter, healthier. A human that would not be held back by doubts or worries. A human that would do what it was told without question or complaint.

First, the scientists needed to figure out how to create a viable human clone. Once that breakthrough was complete, the rest would come in due time. Matt knew that this was true; like knowing that the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning. His whole team knew it was true. It’s what they were all waiting for.

Chapter 3

Jill allowed her thoughts to wander during the ride home. As the car carried her through the wet streets of Seattle, the steady beat of rain on the roof and windshield soothed her. Once she was on the small roads near her apartment, she let the car turn its headlights off. It didn’t need them to drive safely and she preferred the feeling of being in a warm, dark cocoon as she was carried toward the comfort of her home. She could see a faint reflection in the window, the outside lights glowing through her as if she was a ghost.

She had been working on the problems surrounding human genetic engineering for so long now. The lack of progress was frustrating. It had been nearly one-hundred years since the first mammal had been cloned. Contrary to every expectation, human cloning hadn’t followed. The automated, AI-driven techniques that she used to perform genetics research were far more advanced than her ancestors had ever dreamed of, but they still hadn’t led to a breakthrough.

Every time her team got close, they would hit a new roadblock. Sometimes it felt as if there was a malicious ‘something’ that was actively blocking progress. She wasn’t normally superstitious, but on a cold dark night like this it was easy to let her imagination get away from her. She let her eyes lose their focus, looking past the raindrops streaming by, past the subtly glowing guide-lights flashing by, out toward a dark horizon, struggling to see what it was she’d missed. Something they’d all missed.

She had gotten her start in computer science, and because of that she had a certain way of thinking. Sometimes it helped her, sometimes it hurt. She tended to think algorithmically, as if everything was at its root just information. As if the very passage of time was in essence a vast computation. She viewed the universe as a massive computer working toward an unknowable final solution, the algorithms playing out in breathtaking beauty and complexity.

She had received a Masters Degree in Molecular Biology and a Ph.D. in Genetics, but she didn’t conceptualize DNA the way she’d been taught at university. She had been trained to think of biology in terms of proteins unfolding and chemical equations to be solved, but when she looked at DNA she saw code. It was like looking at the world’s messiest, most poorly written program, created by a madman and lacking any comments whatsoever to explain itself.

Evolution had taken what had started as a simple, elegant biological system and had layered on so much crap that the result was an incredible mess that was nearly impossible to make any sense of. Early genetics research had operated on the assumption that every human trait was controlled by one or two genes. If a dominant gene overruled a recessive gene, the trait would manifest. Early in the 21st century it was discovered that this was not the case. To their horror, researchers found that most traits were expressed across the entire genetic structure. Height, for instance, was expressed across ninety percent of the active DNA sequence. There was no tall gene. No short gene. It didn’t work that way. If you wanted to change someone’s height, you would need to make an exacting set of changes across tens of thousands of alleles.

Then there was RNA. If DNA was the code, then RNA was the runtime interpreter. It was the mechanism by which DNA was interpreted into physical structures and traits. The exact same DNA sequence could result in a bewildering variety of outcomes depending upon the RNA it was processed by. If that wasn’t enough, the RNA could change continuously as a result of environmental and behavioral factors. It had taken one of the most powerful AI constructs in the world two full years to create a working model of a single DNA/RNA combination that accounted for any sort of environmental variability.

She knew the answer had to be out there somewhere, and she wanted to be the one to find it. Somewhere in that mess of DNA and RNA was the key that would unlock unlimited genetic engineering.

The ability to genetically modify humans had grown in leaps and bounds over the past century. Most of the symptoms of aging had been pushed back to the very end of life. Teeth didn’t decay, wrinkles didn’t form, and muscles didn’t weaken; humanity was experiencing a golden age of health and vitality. Genetic engineering was what primed the brain stem for the neural implant that everyone was now given at birth. Without the progress that had been made in the past decades, implant tech wouldn’t have been possible. It was hard to imagine what life had been like before everyone had access to an interface.

A wide variety of genetic engineering modifications were possible on human subjects, but if a threshold was passed the result was inevitably catastrophic failure. Genetic researchers were like a group of hackers nibbling at the edges of a system they didn’t fully understand. Some unknown factor was preventing them from making progress beyond a certain point. Jill dreamed of a future in which unlimited genetic engineering truly unlocked human potential. The possibilities were so much greater than what had been achieved so far.

There were some who opted out of the entire idea, who lived ‘close to the genome’ as they called it. They believed in staying true to what they saw as the original human form, living close to nature, choosing to suffer and die like their ancestors. They tended to be cult-like in their belief in the purity of the human genome. The percentage of people who took it that far was minuscule, but there were many who sympathized.

She had to admit that there had been some negative side-effects to genetic engineering. People lived longer, healthier lives, but overpopulation on this depleted planet had become an issue again. It was hard to get used to. Not since the Great Unrest had anyone had to worry about there being too many people. The die-off during that time had been so large that the human race had experienced a measurable reduction in genetic diversity. It was one of the reasons Jill had decided to enter the field. She not only wanted to improve individual lives, she wanted to ensure the species as a whole survived and thrived.

Unfortunately, the ability to engineer the genome had resulted in less diversity, not more. Giving parents the ability to engineer their children had resulted in a convergence toward what society determined was the ideal child. One of the unexpected results was that there weren’t enough men left in the world. Not only were a huge number of men killed during the Great Unrest, once the world regained stability it had become a cultural assumption that boys were less desirable than girls. After all, men had led the human race to the very precipice of extinction. No one had the desire to repeat that particular experiment in self-destruction.

There had even been talk of legislating a solution – requiring each state to meet a male quota for instance – but so far there hadn’t been any significant progress. The upshot was that for every male there were now three females. The world had long given up on an even ratio between the sexes. The battle now was merely to preserve what was left.

Jill shifted her body so her back was up against the side of the car and she was looking out the opposite side window. Her head was cocked to the side, her index finger tapping her lips. Maybe she hadn’t taken the computer science analogy far enough. There was something about thinking like a hacker that was making the itch in her mind grow stronger. She could feel it intensifying, like a solution on the verge of revealing itself to her.

So far she’d been conducting her research as if the system she was studying was acting in good faith. She had assumed that the obfuscation in the genome was caused by the chaos inherent in natural selection. She had always believed that her failures were because she hadn’t understood the interactions between the genes well enough, and so her strategy had been focused on cataloging the result of every individual genetic change. At the lab they applied a brute force approach to testing each combination in turn, moving toward a critical mass of knowledge, hoping for an ‘Aha!’ moment that would open the floodgates of understanding. Meanwhile, the horizon moved steadily further away.

Every other animal in the world could be engineered in extraordinary ways. Entirely new species of animals had been created in the lab and optimized for human consumption. There was clearly something special about human genetic code that was blocking their progress.

She closed her eyes and triggered her interface, focusing it on her biological parameters. The interface sprung to life in front of her, displaying a glowing representation of her body. She focused on her limbic system and the interface zoomed in, the limbus of her brain highlighted. She paused for a moment, thinking it through. Then she nudged her entorhinal cortex, modifying her associative memory system’s response to cortisol and epinephrine. The color of her brain changed, shading closer toward blue. Her attachment to past ideas fell away. Her willingness to accept novel solutions increased. She found herself in the center of a radius of calm, the world around her muted and subdued.

And then it unfurled like an exquisite flower, the realization blooming in her mind. She knew what she’d been missing. She finally understood what they’d all been missing.

Chapter 4

“Joining me in the studio today are two of the leading voices of our time. On my left is Megan Duncan, a bio-ethicist from the Berkeley school of Reason. On my right is Lisa Albright, a Senior Mentor at the Sunrise Congregation in Livingston, Virginia. Lisa is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Pure Genome Project and a repeat guest on this show. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to you both and thank you for joining me tonight.”

Holly turned toward Megan with a well-practiced, serious expression. “Today we are talking about the ongoing efforts to clone a human. Let’s dig into the reasons why the attempts have been unsuccessful so far. Do you, like many, believe that this is a technology we are not meant to have?”

Megan raised one eyebrow and smiled into the camera, “No Holly, I don’t believe that. When I look at the history of our species, I see an unbroken track record of exploration and discovery, starting with the invention of language and fire, culminating in the highly advanced society that we enjoy today. Without technology, this planet’s limited carrying capacity wouldn’t be capable of sustaining our current quality of life. We should never forget the dark years during the Great Unrest. We owe a huge thanks to our ancestors for getting us back on our feet and to where we are today. We have an obligation to future generations to push the frontiers of science ever forward.”

Holly smiled prettily and turned to Lisa. “What would you say to that Lisa? Should we hurtle ourselves forward into a golden technological future, or are there boundaries we should fear to cross?”

Lisa’s face crinkled into a smile, charisma oozing from every pore. “Megan raises a good point. I would like to start by saying I truly respect and honor all the achievements of the scientific community, but we should understand that technology is nothing more than a tool. It is a means of achieving that which will bring further glory to God. Technology should never become an end in and of itself. It only takes a brief review of humanity’s sorry history of war and conflict to see the twisted ways in which scientific achievement has been used to destroy and condemn our fellow man.”

Megan leaned forward, a glossy braid falling over her shoulder. “Lisa, you are ignoring a critical fact. All of that historic bloodshed was caused by men in the pursuit of power and conquest. There are so few men left and we’ve moved beyond that stage in our history. Our species has matured. We’ve grown up. We can be trusted now to advance our technology, without the need for prior restraints. We no longer need to set the kind of limits on progress that may have made sense in the past. Can you imagine a woman leading the Khmer Rouge to commit genocide? A woman in charge of the Nazi holocaust? A woman starting a nuclear war over religious misunderstandings? I know I can’t imagine it.”

Lisa crossed her arms, looking thoughtful, before she replied, “I’ve heard this argument before and I find it unconvincing. Aren’t we all human? Maybe we can’t imagine a woman committing these types of atrocities because we simply haven’t witnessed it yet?”

“That’s a circular argument, Lisa. It’s a fact that women are less aggressive than men and we know they are more willing to resolve conflicts verbally rather than physically. This is exactly why we’ve enjoyed such unprecedented peace over the past few decades,” Megan responded.

Holly cut in, “We are wandering away from the subject of tonight’s program. Let’s get back to that specific example of human cloning that we started with. Why hasn’t human cloning been successful? Should we even attempt to create a human clone?”

“The lack of success is a fascinating question,” noted Megan, “one that is being investigated in many labs around the world. We’ve all seen how powerful genetic engineering can be. Our entire post-capitalist system is tied to our ability to modify the human genome. What we don’t yet understand is why we’ve run into hard limits in our quest for generalized genetic modifications, including human cloning.”

Lisa broke in, “But what about the ethical question? Cloning leads us to question the very idea of a soul. Is it right for us to make copies of something as precious and singular as a human being? By doing so, do we devalue the result? Do we devalue the rest of humanity? Will cloning result in humans becoming disposable?”

“You are breaking in on my territory,” Megan said with a laugh. “These are all excellent questions, and they are exactly the right questions to be asking in my opinion. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t move forward in our research, but we should do so very carefully while considering these important issues from every possible angle.”

Lisa broke in, looking solemn. “Consider from every angle? Forgive me for saying so, but that is an extremely patronizing attitude toward those of us who have grave concerns about this entire endeavor. What about the roadblocks that scientists have encountered? Many in my congregation believe that God is actively blocking our progress. Maybe we aren’t meant to advance our knowledge past a certain point. The Tower of Babel is an ancient lesson that holds important lessons for us even today. At what price will we realize the cost of human arrogance and the dire consequences of reaching too far.”

Holly swiveled her head back and forth as the guests spoke, her interest piqued beyond what could be expected from gracious professionalism. “I’d be very interested in hearing your response to that question Megan, but first let’s take a break and hear from our sponsors.”

Jill twitched her finger in the air to trigger the controls for the virtual screen and turned off the live-cast. It was all crap. The talking heads could blather on for a hundred years and still no progress would be made. The debates made for good entertainment, but they didn’t bring anybody closer to the answers. In the end, it didn’t matter. She was doing what she was doing for the good of mankind. She imagined a future free of disease. A future in which people could choose who they wanted to be, in a multitude of physical forms. A future free of pain and suffering. That’s why she had devoted her life to this problem. She had always dreamed of setting humanity free.

This line of thinking brought up painful memories for Jill. It always did. She hadn’t lived through the Great Unrest, but she lived with its consequences. She had never gotten to meet her grandfather. He had died in the firestorm that had swept San Diego. All that was left of him were the stories that Grandma Annie had shared with her before she too had died. Jill had sat beside her bed as she had coughed out her last breaths, the cancers having spread through every part of her body. Another legacy of the Great Unrest, a sickness so pervasive that nothing could be done to stop it.

If Jill had her way, it would all be a thing of the past. Not only the cancers and diseases of the body that had afflicted her grandmother, but the tendencies toward war and violence that had afflicted her grandfather and so many other millions like him. That was the oath she had sworn on her grandmother’s deathbed, and she had dedicated the rest of her life to fulfilling it.

She stood up and padded from her bedroom into the communal kitchen. Pepe followed her, purring and brushing up against the doorframe with his fluffy grey back, his tail waving back and forth in excitement.

“Hey Pepe, are you hungry too?” Jill spoke quietly so she wouldn’t wake anyone up.

Pepe looked up at her and meowed, his tiny teeth sharp and translucent.

“Hold on, I’ll get some milk for you. Warm I suppose?”

Once they were in the kitchen, Jill bent down and triggered her interface to place a bowl of warm milk on the floor in front of Pepe. He meowed once more and then plunged his head into the bowl, lapping up the creamy milk with gusto.

Jill sighed. She wasn’t actually in the mood for this right now. Her ideas from earlier in the night still hung in her mind. The more she toyed with them, the more they unraveled around the edges. She was trying to hold it all together, but she just wasn’t sure. She had felt so excited, but was this line of research going to get her any closer to a solution? She’d start her investigation first thing in the morning, but right now, she just needed to relax. She needed to let her mind settle. She triggered her interface again and both Pepe and the bowl of milk disappeared. She walked to the food synthesizer and requested a cup of chamomile tea.

She was sitting at the table nursing her cup when Jacob walked in. “Hey Jill, need some company?”

When she didn’t respond, he sat down next to her and put a foot up on the chair next to him. “Tough day at work?”

“I don’t feel like talking about it,” she said, her hand wrapped around the comforting warmth of the mug. She stared through the steam curling off the top of the hot liquid, her eyes losing their focus.

“Sorry Jill, I didn’t mean to intrude.” He shut himself down, the space where he was sitting flickering back into emptiness.

What she wouldn’t give for a real person to talk to right now.

Chapter 5

Jill lifted her head, peeling her face off the slick surface of the table. She must have fallen asleep, her cup of tea now cold beside her. “Huh, that was weird,” she said to the empty room. She checked her internal self-diagnostics and saw that she’d gotten a full four hours of sleep. Falling asleep at the kitchen table? She hadn’t done that for years. The stress at work must be getting to her.

The light was shimmering behind the auto-blinds, so she gave them the command for transparency and took a moment to look outside. It was windy this morning, the tree limbs shaking, billows of yellow leaves blowing past in cascades of color. Occasionally, a small stick would bounce silently off the window, the sound of it failing to penetrate through the thick pane.

She asked the synthesizer to get started on her breakfast while she kept her eyes on the scene outside. No animals of course, but she could see to the horizon where land met sea, small clouds scudding prettily across the sky. She adjusted the filter and buildings filled the view. They were huddled close together, dark and forbidding, the closest just ten feet across the lane from her. As always, they were grim and grey, massive, dirty, and depressing to look at. They were not maintained for aesthetics. All that mattered was that they kept the elements out and the humans in.

She made it a habit of looking at the real world once in a while. It was easier to keep the filters on, and it was certainly more pleasant, but there was no substitute for reality. She raised her hands up over her head, stretching once to the left, once to the right, feeling the pull all the way into her legs. A ball of conglomerated rubbish bounced down the lane and stuck itself to a wall. Jill ignored it. A cleaning drone would get to it eventually, and in the meantime no one else would even notice it was there. Most people kept their filters up all the time.

The synthesizer informed her that her meal was ready. She took a few minutes to finish a set of deep knee bends and then she re-activated the filters. A scene of pastoral beauty replaced the buildings. What she was looking at was real in a sense. It was what the area had looked like 150 years ago, before it had been developed and incorporated into the city. In the scene outside, the wind continued to blow and yellow leaves continued to fly past. She turned on the animal filter and a couple of deer appeared, grazing in the distance. A squirrel chattered in a tree branch, holding on for dear life as the branch swayed violently in the wind. Below the squirrel a dog wandered past, his nose down, following a scent that only he could smell.

Jill smiled and turned back to the table. Her plate was piled high and a cup of coffee awaited her, doctored with precisely the right amount of cream and sugar.

Jill was lost in thought, the drive downtown to the lab passing easily. She had her head pressed back into the seat cushions, an astronomical chart projected in front of her. She was watching the progression of the stars as seen from Earth, accelerated one hundred thousand times faster than normal. It was a habit she’d formed as a child, memorizing the changes to the constellations over time. It had started when she’d watched a bad horror feed involving a time machine, and she’d decided that if she were ever involuntarily transported in time she would want to know, at the very least, what century she was in. So she’d started studying the stars from millennia in the past and far into the future, memorizing their patterns. She was old enough now to see it as a funny side-effect of a child’s over-active imagination, but she kept at it. It was comforting, and it brought her back to her roots.

The car jolted to a stop and she was shaken out of her reverie. In front of the car someone had projected a wide band of yellow tape, and beyond that there were armed military personnel swarming her lab building.

“This is a restricted area, you may not travel beyond this point,” an automated voice informed her.

She stepped out of the car and walked down the block, parallel to the tape, trying to get a better look. At the end of the block, she saw a group of scientists standing in a clump looking worried. As she approached, Joanne, from the classification department noticed her and waved her over.

“What’s going on? Why did they close the lab?” Jill asked.

Joanne looked upset, one of her hands tapping her leg, the other fidgeting with a virtual cigarette. “They locked it down earlier this morning. No one’s talking, but I’ve heard some ugly rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?”

“They’re saying that Matt’s dead.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Joanne leaned in close, “suicide.”

“What?” Jill repeated, dumbfounded. “How could that be? I just saw him last night. He looked fine.”

“You know what they say about looking for the signs, right? It’s all bullshit. I had a friend who committed suicide, and I had no clue. He told me he was going to meet me for lunch and then his wife found him dead. He left a note and everything. Ranting and raving about the state of the world and how hopeless he felt. Fucking men, right?”

“Wait, how do they know it was suicide? With Matt I mean.”

“I shouldn’t be telling you this. I mean the body isn’t even cold yet, if you know what I mean. But what the hell.” Joanne took a drag on her fake cigarette, drawing out the drama. “They found him in his office. Neural overload. They also found stim packs and simulators. The whole nine yards. Nasty, right?”

Jill forced down a wave of nausea and looked back toward the lab building while she collected her emotions. “What’s going on over there? Why did they lock it down?”

“Oh, that? They’ve nationalized the lab.”

“They what?” Jill gasped. That was impossible. That meant the entire building would be converted into a cleared facility. She would never be able to set foot in there again. Her professional-node would be locked down. All her research. Her notes. Her… everything. Shit!

Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself running toward the lab, hoping she could somehow make it through the door.

“This is a terrible idea,” the rational part of her brain told her, “this will end badly.”

She made it to the edge of the tape before they shut her down. Her nervous system spiked, sending a massive jolt through her body, and then she collapsed, arms and legs jelly, her head thumping against the street.

Her last thought, before she completely lost consciousness, was that she didn’t believe a single word that Joanne had told her. Matt could not have committed suicide. And the lockdown could not be a coincidence. She was going to find out what the hell was going on.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

Ian leapt from his bunk, Amy’s panicked shouts echoing in his ears, but it was already too late. With a massive shudder, barnacle-covered rocks punched through the wooden hull and a torrent of cold water poured into the boat.

The impact threw him to the floor, hands and knees wet, the smell of brine in his nose. He pulled himself to his feet, fighting for balance, and flung himself up the companionway stairs into the cockpit. Amy stood in shock, eyes wild, face drained of all color, one earbud dangling, bassline thumping from the music she’d been listening to.

“Oh shit Ian, what just happened? I think I’m...” and then she collapsed, her eyes glazing over and rolling back into her head as her body crumpled to the cockpit floor.

Stunned, barely able to stay on his feet himself, Ian stared wide-eyed at Amy’s prone form. The boat was in violent motion, the lurching of a mortally wounded animal. The air around them was filled with the sound of raging wind and crashing waves, accompanied by groans and sharp cracks, as his boat, his only real love in this world, tore itself apart.

Feeling the boat heave under him again, he braced himself, feet wide, one hand on the binnacle, struggling to gain control of his thoughts. First, situational awareness. Second, understand threats to the boat and crew. Third, take action.

There was still daylight, skies leaden, wind twenty knots or more judging by the size of the swells and the wind-driven spray. Sails were up, the wind driving them hard onto the rocks. No way to get them down, not now. Instruments? All dead. Could he use the engine to pull them off the rocks? Did he even want to? Back in the water the boat might quickly sink, no telling how large the hole was. He glanced down below, water was already up to the seat bottoms in the salon. Not good. Not good at all.

He could feel the panic rising, a paralyzing helplessness that could kill them both. He clenched his jaw against it. Tried to breathe through it. The boat was shifting, pummeled by the churning waves that were driving them further onto the rocks, the wind unrelenting, the angle quickly becoming perilous, the ocean far too close on the starboard side. Panic rising again, he moved himself carefully to the high side of the boat, further from the water.

Suddenly it clicked into place. His panic dropped out of him, right out the bottom of his stomach, through his feet, and it was gone. He saw it clearly now. His boat was dead. Well and truly dead. Water was coming in over the side now, and down below he could see it was as high as the galley sink. The boat’s movements were sluggish; she was in her final death throes, it wouldn’t be much longer.

He grabbed Amy, pulling her over the high side, down the slippery hull and into the rocks. Water thrashed around them, freezing cold, taking his breath, no way to breathe, not now, keep moving. Falling, he scrabbled forward with one arm, crablike, pulling Amy behind him, feeling the barnacles tearing into his hands and knees. He was battered forward until he collapsed just beyond the tide line, just past the reach of the ocean, a tiny figure lost among the huge driftwood trees that lay upon the beach like the thigh bones of a giant, thrown there by something even larger and even less concerned with a puny human life.

When he came to again, he was aware that he was shivering. His limbs were numb and stiff, his hands felt like clubs, and they looked like raw meat. Amy. Where was Amy?

He sat up suddenly, too fast for his sluggish blood, and had to cradle his head in his hands for three long beats while his vision cleared and the ringing in his ears faded. Amy was a dark heap of sand-covered, sodden clothing to his left. In front of him the ocean beat on the rocks, sending up plumes of spray. Timeless. No sign of a mast. No sign of his boat. She was completely gone.

Behind him was forest – dark roots reaching out from the verge and plunging deep into the sand to hold fast against the perpetual wind and spray. He was sitting on a beach, white with crushed shells. A midden. Evidence of an ancient First Nations village site, the detritus of centuries of the living who had long ago faded into oblivion.

He crawled over to Amy and touched her arm. “Amy, wake up.”

She looked at him with blank eyes and he could feel the panic churning inside him again. There was nothing in those eyes. It wasn’t Amy looking back at him, it was a raw senselessness, her face slack. He clamped down, pushing the panic back as he felt the edges of his vision start to shrink, his chest pulling at him. Pulling at him to run, to yell, to do something. He shook her hard, yelled, “Amy!” She blinked once, slowly. A few more fast blinks and she was back, falling into him, hugging him hard, shuddering, and making incoherent noises that might have been words.

“Amy, we’ve got to figure out what to do next.” He could see her pull herself together. She was strong, he knew that, had seen it before. She’d been scared on this trip, had bitten off more than she could chew, but she’d stuck with it, hadn’t complained, and had learned quickly. She bore up when it was cold, did what was needed when the weather turned and the wind and waves rose up. He had been exhausted today, and he’d started to trust her. That’s why he’d agreed to get some sleep while she took a turn at the helm and kept the boat sailing north, putting miles under the keel.

Ian shook these thoughts from his head. It was time to focus on what they needed to do to survive. He took quick stock. They had the clothes on their backs. No radio. No ditch bag. No food or knife or matches. They both had shoes, thank the gods for that. His habit of sleeping off-watch fully dressed had helped him there. They were alive, battered, cut, and freezing, but alive. That was enough for now.

The beach they were on was a crescent roughly one hundred feet from point to point, hemmed in on both sides by walls of blocky, black rocks that reached out and descended into the ocean. He closed his eyes and visualized the last view of the GPS chart before going to sleep.

“Amy, how long was I sleeping before we hit?”

“Only a couple of minutes. Ian, I swear to God, I don’t know what happened. The fog came in so quickly and there was something out there… Something that reached out to me... I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Something out there? What are you talking about?”

Amy’s eyes lost focus, as she turned inward, trying to remember, trying to put it into words. “I don’t know. I just… it was like I was somewhere else. I thought I was in a forest. Oh my God, I sank your boat. Ian, I’m so sorry.”

“You fainted after we ran aground. You’re still disoriented. Let’s focus on what we need to do to get out of this mess, ok?”

Amy compressed her lips and nodded.

They had been a few miles south of Hurst Island when he’d given Amy the helm, so that must be where they were now – south shore of Hurst Island. The bad news was that it was a Provincial Park, preserved as wilderness. The good news was that there was supposed to be a lodge on the north side of the island, maybe six miles away. He tried to remember what he’d read. He knew it was only open during the summer and it was well into the Fall now, but maybe there would be a caretaker around who could help them.

They made their way to the top of the rocks on the eastern point. Twenty feet up, they had a better view over the beach with a panoramic view of the ocean to the south. Queen Charlotte Strait reached off to the horizon, a clear line of fading light. To the east were the snow-capped mountains of the mainland. To the west, the heavy forests of Vancouver Island – wild and inhospitable and as good as unreachable without a boat – the water cold enough to kill even if the seas were calm. The channel looked especially deadly at the moment, heaped into vicious, steep-sided waves, the tops blown off in whorls of spray by wind opposing a strong tide.

Six miles to the lodge. Just six miles. They could do that in a few hours, right? Ian turned from the ocean and looked into the dense forest lining the beach, considering what they should do. As he scanned the treeline he saw something moving in the trees. Right at the edge of the beach, just past the bushes, there was definitely something. He squinted his eyes and focused on it. Could there be someone else on the island?

“Hello? Hello! Anyone there?” He walked a few steps to get a closer look and the figure melted into the gloom of the trees, becoming indistinct in the waning light. He felt the hair rising on his arms as goosebumps erupted. He shook it off, feeling the fear subside as he rationalized what he’d seen. There was no one else around. The wind and the shadows were playing tricks on him.

To the east the sky was fading to a deep purple, to the west it was streaked with a riot of color. The light was fading fast and the air cut hard into their wet clothes. Six miles in this terrain? That could take a full day. They needed to find a place to shelter for the night.

Charles brushed his teeth. Not the normal way. He brushed the way Mom had taught him. Hard. Hard enough to scrape the enamel from his teeth and shred his gums. That was the only way to get truly clean. That’s what she had told him and he believed her. He believed everything he’d ever been told. By anyone. That was what was special about Charles. He was a believer.

When he was done brushing his teeth he pulled out his duct tape and pulled off a really long strip. Long enough to tape his heels to his forehead. There was a reason it had to be that long. It was because the next thing he did was tape his left heel to the right side of his forehead. Then he pulled off another long piece and he taped his right heel to the left side of his forehead. This was a proven way to keep bees from stinging, gremlins from biting, and also it kept him from getting acne. Mostly. He still had an annoying little patch on the left side of his forehead and another on the right side of his forehead. His heels were kind of itchy too.

Then he walked into the shower. Literally. He thought he was exiting the bathroom but he had gotten confused and he couldn’t see through all the tape, and it was really hard to walk so he shuffle-hunched straight into the shower door. He sighed. Not again. He turned the water on hot and he stepped into the shower. His clothes were on of course. He didn’t want the dirty water from the shower to make his sensitive skin dirty. His clothes would protect him from that.

Under the pressure of the hot water, the tape slowly unraveled and fell off of his forehead and then peeled away from his feet. Charles sighed contentedly and balled it up to add to the soggy tape pile in the corner of the shower. His morning routine never failed to make him feel better. Now that the water was good and clean he took off his clothes and hung them on the shower door to drip dry. He knew that drip drying was the only safe way to get your clothes clean. Otherwise the licelings would stay in the linings of his underwear and he would get oh so terribly itchy. After a few more minutes he turned the water off, put his wet (partly drip dried) clothing back on, and stepped out of the shower. He used a towel to dry up the floor, so that the vapors wouldn’t escape into the atmosphere, and then he hung that up so it could safely drip dry as well.

Hmm, what was next? Oh, right, breakfast! He couldn’t go through his bedroom, not yet, so he opened the hatch in his bathroom floor and he slipped down the pole into the eating room. It was pretty full today, all his imaginary friends were there. Paulo and Fredo and Marko and Mario, all fully dressed, dripping and ready to eat. He waved his hellos and headed over to the cereal bar. He looked over his selections of cereal (which was just one) and chose what looked best to him (the one selection available) and he poured it into a bowl and covered it up with some rehydrated water. He remembered milk. Well he remembered seeing it on a show once and he thought that it looked good on cereal, except that it was oddly white and what he was eating wasn’t really cereal it was a nutrified protein powder, but that didn’t matter, he still thought milk with cereal sounded pretty neat.

He plopped down on the bench next to Paulo, who was unusually quiet today, and started to munch. When he was done munching he swallowed. Then he looked at Paulo.

“Hey man, how’s your morning?” he asked.

The open, empty space next to him, filled with an imaginary Paulo, said nothing.

“Yeah, I hear you. That squeaking heater duct can sure get on your nerves. Did you sleep OK?”

Charles waited a moment, nodded and then said, “Yup, you got it. I’ll swing by later and show you my latest music pick. It’s pretty darn tootin if you ask me.”

Charles focused on his cereal and munched away for a while longer. He was feeling protein filled and nutrified enough so he stood up to recycle what was left. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t waste anything,” he said to the empty room and sat back down again to eat.

When he was done and he’d licked the bowl clean, he put it back on the cereal bar so he could use it for his next meal. Then he stood in front of the viewing screen and he contemplated the view for a very long moment. In front of him was the vastness of space. Inky black, pinpricked with sparks of light, each one a distant star. The brightest star was called Sun and orbiting around it was his origin point. Well not his origin point, but the ship’s origin point. He knew that because he’d learned it from the ship’s computer. They’d been traveling for a very long time. He liked to measure time in Charleses, so he knew the distance traveled was five thousand, three hundred and fifty two Charles.

He turned back to the computer. “Mom?”

“Yes,” she answered

“What time is it?”

“What does it matter Charles?” This was a game they liked to play.

“It matters to me because I’m human.”

“Yes you are Charles and it doesn’t matter to me because I’m not.”

Charles smiled at that. He liked that he was unique. He was Human and Mom was not. That made him happy.

He walked back through the corridors to his room so he could get dressed. At the access door he noticed that the light was a different color than normal. It was always green but today it was orange. He wasn’t sure what that meant. He shrugged his shoulders and pressed his hand on the pad to request access. When the door slid open he saw somebody was in his room. This gave him quite the start. He’d never seen anybody before. His entire life had been spent alone, in this ship, just himself and Mom. The imaginary friends didn’t count, he knew they weren’t real.

The somebody who was in the room didn’t hear him enter, so they didn’t turn around. They kept doing what they were doing, which was that they were looking through his drawers. Head inside, both hands digging, clothing flying everywhere. Funny, that’s how Charles got dressed too. Maybe this somebody was like him. Human.

“Hello?” he said.

The person stood up with a jerk and a shout and spun around to face him.

“Oh,” Charles 5352 said

“Oh,” Charles 5353 said

“I didn’t realize it was already time.”

“It’s not supposed to be. I think there was a glitch.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a problem.”

Charles thought about this. He was looking at his mirror image. Of course he was. Every Charles was exactly the same since they were all clones of the original Charles. They all knew how to run the ship and how to repair what needed fixing. That’s why they had to stay awake and live their lives as the ship traveled. But there were only enough resources for one Charles at a time. They weren’t supposed to overlap.

“Oh,” he said again. Kind of sadly this time.

“Yeah, I know. It’s early, but it’s time.”

Charles shrugged his shoulders. It was OK. He’d had enough time to get to know Mom and to learn all about Paulo and Mario and even Fredo and Marko a little bit. It had been a good time. Now he had to do what was necessary for the good of the ship. It was time to go home.

So he got in a tiny little seed pod, let the systems shut his body down into stasis and then he was shot back toward Earth. A long range communication packet that would arrive back on the home world to report on the journey and let everyone know that the colony ship was still heading straight and true for their next world. A lovely little m-class planet 25 light years away that was going to make for a wonderful place to live. As long as it had no spiders. Charles hated spiders.

Once upon a time there was a pebble. Just a pebble. A very normal pebble. It was round and smooth, greyish-whitish, with a few very pretty silver speckles that it would have been quite proud of, if it could have thought about such things. But it couldn’t. Because it was a pebble and pebbles don’t have brains. Everybody knows that. But for the purpose of this story let’s give the pebble a name. Let’s call it Pebble.

Pebble sat patiently on the bottom of a small stream for a long time. The stream was in a beautiful mountain valley, with a couple of lakes at the top, trees and bushes near the water, and a handful of overly luxurious, overly large, frequently uninhabited vacation homes at the bottom. Winding up the valley, from the houses to the lakes, was a small and very lovely trail. It was crafted just so. It wound up and it wound down and everyone who walked upon it remarked on its clever design and wonderful views.

Pebble was unaware of any of this. He (can I call him a he?) sat on the bottom of the stream and was rolled forward by the pressure of the water on him. During the winter he moved very little. The stream was frozen after all and the fish were all asleep and it was like he was asleep too. He would nestle in a little cranny, amongst the other pebbles, and they would all sleep together.

During the spring he would burst into activity, bouncing and dancing down the stream bed, moving along with all his friends, slowly becoming more round, more polished, and just a bit more like all the other round, polished pebbles that surrounded him. You could think of the stream like a giant rock tumbler. At the top, the rocks were sharp and large, having fallen freshly off of the surrounding cliffs. They had individuality and character. At the bottom the rocks had been turned into pebbles – round and smooth. They all looked alike, with only small differences in color and character. All of this change was accomplished by the power of the water in the stream. The rocks didn’t actually dance you see, they were pushed along by the water, bouncing and dancing because of the swirls and eddies and the unrelenting pressure of all that melting snow and ice. There is very little that water cannot do if it is given enough time to do it.

One day Pebble was pushed to the side of the stream during a very strong rush of melting snow and then he was left there to dry in the sun. He no longer moved. Well not much anyway. And if he had had any thoughts you might say that he was bored. His friends moved on without him but he had new friends. All around him were rocks that had also been pushed aside by the stream, exposed to the weather, no longer in the womb, expelled into the real world. But he had no thoughts, so he wasn’t bored and he didn't worry at all about his friends, either old or new. He just sat there and weathered.

***

Pablo the Fairy was tired. Very tired. He’d been up to no good for what seemed like hours now. A lot of hours. So many hours… His feet dragged on the ground and his little wings lay limp. He hated walking but his wings were done. Completely done. He’d been flying for … well hours. And they were just completely out of juice. The only way to get more juice was to let the sun charge them back up again. So he walked, his wings behind him, catching sunlight and sparkling faintly as they sucked up energy.

Pablo wished he could suck up some energy. He had none left. First he’d gone into a huge vacation home and tickled the feet of every person who lived there. While they were sleeping! He’d woken them up and then he’d giggled about it. There’d been only two people in that monstrous castle of a house and they’d both been monstrously old, but he’d take what he could get. Four whole feet tickled! Then he’d sprinkled a little pepper into the nose of a cat. That was pure fun. It had sneezed and yowled and run about the yard until someone had to let it in, where it had hid under the bed for the rest of the night.

He’d spent the entire night causing problems. That was a night well spent. But now he was so very tired. All he wanted to do was go home, curl up into a little fairy ball and go to sleep so he could do it all over again tomorrow. It was a good life, he had to admit it.

As he walked, his pouch of fairy dust bounced along at his hip. He hardly noticed it because it weighed almost nothing. The fairy dust, in fact, weighed less than nothing. That was the beauty of fairy dust, it didn’t obey any of the rules of physics that you are used to. Gravity means nothing to fairy dust. The Earth can’t pull on it, wind can’t move it, and water can’t make it wet. The only thing that fairy dust obeys is intention. When Pablo would pull fairy dust out of his pouch with his hand, he wasn’t actually touching the dust, because it ignores the electromagnetic force, and his hand would go right through it if he wasn’t concentrating on the right intention. So when Pablo picked up fairy dust, he concentrated on his intention to pick it up and the fairy dust obeyed his will and pretended like it was being picked up – nestling in his hand in a fair imitation of normal.

But it wasn’t normal. Not even close. Fairy dust is magic. Everyone knows that.

Sometimes fairy dust has its own intention. Did you know that? If so, good for you, because not many people do. You have to be pretty well steeped in fairy lore to know that fairy dust will sometimes, very rarely, but just often enough to be interesting, make a decision on its own.

This was one of those times.

While Pablo dragged his feet up the lovely trail in the beautiful valley, next to the lively stream, on his way home to his little nook in a tree, part-way up a large, grey cliff, the fairy dust decided on something. The fairy dust decided it wanted to make a little trouble of its own. It only seems fair, right? Pablo had been having so much fun, the fairy dust wanted to have a little fun too. So it drifted out of the pouch and a few small, sparkling, speckles floated behind Pablo for a moment before drifting lightly down onto Pebble.

***

Pebble woke up. Not all the way awake mind you. He’d been sleeping for a very long time. Millennia. Since the beginning of time, I suppose, if you count the fact that his atoms were built in the belly of a star. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been awake. Maybe this was the first time? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that he was a pebble and he was alive and he was laying on something hard and he couldn’t see anything or hear anything or really move at all, but he knew who he was. He was Pebble!

Wait he could move. A little bit. So he wiggled. If anyone had been watching and they had been watching very, very closely, they would have seen a small, grey pebble wiggle just a little bit in way that couldn’t be entirely explained.

He liked to wiggle. This was fun! So he kept doing it. And the more he wiggled the more he realized that he was changing. Something was happening on the bottom of him. Well it was the bottom of him now, because he was growing legs. Little tiny pebble legs were sprouting from one side of him. When it seemed like they had stopped growing, and after he had started to get bored of wiggling, he decided to try to use them, and so he stood up.

That might be too graceful of a term to use for what he did because when Pebble stood up for the first time it was more like a crazy lurch that ended with him upside down, with his legs sticking straight up into the sky. Now that his top was facing down and his bottom was facing up, it was much harder to stand up, so he wiggled some more. It had been a few minutes and he was starting to miss it - wiggling really is pretty fun if you stop and think about it.

After wiggling for a while, his legs were underneath him once more and he decided to try standing up again. This attempt was much more successful and so he stood upon his little legs and he swayed back and forth while he learned how to balance. It was at this point that he realized he had a mouth.

“Oh”, he said. “Wow.” It wasn’t the most amazing thing anyone has said, but I’m pretty sure it is the most amazing thing a pebble has ever said and Pebble was quite proud of himself.

“Oh! Wow!” He said again. He felt he was getting the hang of this. He could stand and he could say two words. That was some serious progress. Then he discovered that he could walk. From walk he discovered he could run, and at this point Pebble realized the world was an amazing and wondrous place.

He ran forward at a breakneck speed (for a pebble) screaming at the top of his lungs (pebble lungs), “Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow!”

If someone had been walking on the trail on this lovely summer day, and they had been at the right place at exactly the right time, they would have seen a tiny little pebble running as fast as it possibly could, yelling as loud as it possibly could in a squeaky little pebble voice. They would have heard it coming from the direction of the stream, over some grassy knobs, across the trail (where he kicked up just a little bit of dust) and across to the other side into the trees.

I should pause here and explain something. Pebble had legs and a mouth, as you probably remember, but he was missing some other very important equipment. He didn’t have any eyes for instance so he couldn’t see where he was going. He also didn’t have any arms, so he couldn’t feel in front of him. As far as Pebble knew, the world was a huge, black, open space that was made for him to run around in. And occasionally wiggle.

So imagine his surprise when he ran into a tree. Pebble quickly went from full speed to no speed at all when he hit the tree, and then he bounced off the tree and he was going negative speed for a little while and then he was on the ground, sitting on what would have been his butt if pebbles had butts. They don’t by the way. Just legs and mouths, and those only sometimes.

“Oh. Wow.” Pebble said. If you were to say that fast, you might notice it also sounds like “Oh. Ow.” But that’s not what he said because it’s actually very hard to hurt a rock. Physically that is. It is easy to hurt their feelings. You will find they are really pretty sensitive if you take the time to get to know one.

Pebble had just learned something new. His world had obstacles.

“Oh! Wow!” He said excitedly. His world had obstacles! What else was there in this world for him to discover? The possibilities seemed endless. But unfortunately for Pebble the half life of fairy dust is quite short and at this point the effects began to wear off. First his mouth and then his legs and then his awareness, and like a gentle dream that you can’t quite remember, he left our world behind and rejoined all the other rocks and pebbles in their world, which is quite separate from ours, and impossible for us to visit.

***

If you happened to have walked on the lovely trail anytime during the rest of that summer, you may have noticed a small pebble, far away from the stream where it belonged, laying in the dirt at the base of a tree, all by itself. The pebble was greyish-whitish with silver speckles that were quite pretty if you took the time to look at them and truly appreciate this pebble for what it was.

That’s what caught the young boy’s eye as he walked up the trail with his father, his little hand clasped tightly in his father’s much larger hand, looking around at the world with his wide eyes because there was so very much for him to see. He saw a little glint of silver as the sun reflected off the pebble just so, angling the light directly into his eyes, but missing his father’s eyes completely. You may wonder why little boys (and girls) see so many things that their fathers don’t? Well that’s just the way the world works, that’s all.

The little boy saw the pebble and he knew right away that he wanted it to be his. He wanted to take it home and stick it on his special shelf with all of his other special things, because he could tell right away that this was a special thing and that’s where it belonged. He stopped walking, pulled free from his father’s hand, walked over to the pebble, and squatted down next to it. He picked up Pebble and he looked at it carefully, felt how smooth and round and perfect it was, and then he put it in his pocket.

And this was a wondrous thing because Pebble was not what he seemed. He was a part of the basement of the world, formed in the fiery furnaces of a young Earth, pummeled by meteorites, covered in lava, not yet touched by water, or life or even an atmosphere. Formed in a sheet of continuous bedrock that had laid bare for eons before being covered with air and then dirt and then lay there for eons more before being forced upward by a cataclysmic collision of continents that had raised the mountains up nearly two miles straight into the air and then he had hung in the air for eons more, before he had broken off of the side of a cliff and fallen a thousand feet to land with a thunderous roar and a cloud of dirt and water that had scared the animals so completely that the forest had been empty of sound and life for nearly a full day. And there he lay while the water and the wind broke him down until he was finally small enough to wash into the stream and down the slope and … well you know the rest of the story. My point is that this little pebble, small enough to pick up and put into your pocket and place onto your shelf was a mighty, wondrous, fearsome object, that has been stamped by time and formed just-so by the most powerful forces on Earth.

Pebble was special. Just like every other rock you see while you are hiking in the mountains. So next time you are walking on a lovely trail by a lively stream, surrounded by huge and majestic mountains, take a moment to admire the little pebbles under your feet and think about where they have come from and the amazing journey that has brought them to where they are today.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Wild-Shipwrecked-Pacific-Northwest-ebook/dp/B07CN8TKGR

The First Nations of the Northwest coast of British Columbia have a long and vibrant history, one that includes numerous myths and legends that they carved into their stories as well as their totem poles. So much of that history has disappeared, along with the villages that dotted the coastal waters. Europeans came, took what they wanted in lumber, fish and wildlife, pillaging the landscape, leaving dark, cavernous stains where thick, luscious forests once graced the shoreline. But the myths and legends didn't really die. The Sasaheva, the wild man, and Tsonoqhah, the wild woman, both mythical creatures of the forest who shared their visions with the humans who sought to care for the land, they remained. For now. But the ravages of human greed will soon have their way with the wild creatures as well, until all that is left is steel and concrete and what so many would call civilization. 

Ian and Amy are on an adventure, sailing along the British Columbia coastline from Victoria to Alaska. At Hurst Island, just off the northern point of Vancouver Island, their journey takes an unexpected turn when their sailboat, Ian's pride and joy, hits the rocks. They manage to make it to the south shore with only the clothes on their backs, just as the boat sinks. The beautiful scenery that they had marvelled at from the boat now looks rather sinister and foreboding and their trek across the island in the hopes of finding help proves to be terrifying in ways neither one of them understands. But connecting with two First Nations men who come to their rescue, they soon learn that their journey is not over and that a spiritual journey is necessary, not only to educate Ian and Amy about the past and what the future might hold, but also how they might help in saving this pristine beauty for generations to come.

Jason Taylor's novel, End of the Wild: Shipwrecked in the Pacific Northwest, is a journey of education, ecology, history and discovery. The plot develops at a good pace, weaving intricate past memories and events with the present and the future. History is told with accuracy and the plight of the First Nations, and the land they nurtured for many thousands of years, is told with riveting accounts that will make the reader think twice before plundering the valuable resources of nature. The characters are certainly believable and well developed and the descriptive parts of the narrative are as vivid as the images they describe, a real painting in words. Having lived for many years and explored the Northwest coast of British Columbia, this story captured my heart and my spirit at once. Brilliantly told with powerful messages to share.

The Man wore black leather. He was as black as the night. As black as a nightmare stealing through your open window and worming its way into your ear.

Ethan’s eye flew open, straining wide, his mouth stretched into a silent ‘O’. He couldn’t breath. Sweat stood out on his forehead, his hands clenched at his sheets as he writhed; as he twisted wildly to free himself of the fear that had overtaken him. Slowly the nightmare faded, shattering into small and fading fragments as the reality of his room became solid around him – the tick of the ceiling fan, the soft breathing of his wife beside him, the snore of his dog, curled up in the corner. But the air felt heavy. Stagnant. His mind grasping against his will, trying to hold onto what he had just experienced. What had it been? What had scared him so much? Something about a dark hallway, a hidden stair, an old woman at the top, rocking slowly as she stared at him and willed him upwards. What had that been about?

The Man was frustrated. His work couldn’t complete if the subject woke up, the nightmare could never finish. Another hour wasted. He huffed silently, trying to calm down, trying to regain the creative energy that had evaporated as soon as Ethan had opened his eyes. Had he pushed too hard? He felt that Ethan should have been able to handle what he’d thrown at him, should have been able to make it to the end of the dream. He sank into thought... perhaps the old woman had looked a bit too much like Ethan’s grandmother? He would have to re-double his efforts.

Ethan sat up in bed. He was fully awake now, no helping it. He looked at his bedside clock. 3am. Sigh. Another night without enough sleep. The day would be wasted. He would be like a zombie. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to keep him awake. He was pacing now. He didn’t know how he’d gotten into the hallway, but here he was. It was nearly pitch dark, just a small amount of light glinting from around the corner toward the kitchen. Had someone left the fridge open? He walked slowly toward the light, placing his feet carefully, he didn’t want to wake anyone else up, it was bad enough that he was awake at this ungodly hour.

The Man was humming softly. If you could have heard him you would have thought it was a sad tune. A dirge perhaps. All minor keys and odd timing, something suitable for a funeral procession or playing over the ashes of forgotten battlefield. He was humming because he was enthralled with creation. Focused. Totally committed. This time it was going to work.

Ethan felt the hallway was longer than it should have been. Longer than he remembered it anyway. Perhaps the dark was playing tricks on him. He was more tired that he thought. He kept walking and the light grew steadily brighter. This couldn’t be the fridge, it was far too bright now. Bright enough that he was having trouble seeing anything else. It was surrounding him, moving towards him as he move towards it. He was compelled. He couldn’t stop. And then he stepped through it and he was in a small attic, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, brushing against his hair and his face. He had to stoop, couldn’t stand up straight in this small, musty, wooden space, a slow rhythmic creaking coming from close behind him. He turned slowly, knowing what he was going to see, dreading it, hating it, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned and saw the old woman in her chair, white wispy hair, papery skin showing through, her skull barely covered. Her eyes were on the floor as she rocked, head bowed, her small shoulders hunched up around her ears. Ethan couldn’t look away, he had to look away. And then her head snapped up, her eyes meeting his, a strange fire in those eyes, energy arcing across the small distance, stunning him, freezing him in place. He tried to scream but his breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide and straining.

The Man plucked at the strings of the dream, carefully now, trying to extract what he needed from it, trying to teach Ethan what he needed to know but…

Ethan found himself in bed once again, his mouth open, a silent scream stuck in his throat, his hands like claws on the blanket. He stopped moving, focused on breathing, the fragments of the dream evaporating like a morning mist. Morning. What time was it? He looked at the clock by his bed. 3am. He was wide awake. No chance of getting back to sleep now. What had the dream been about? An old woman? An attic? What had been so scary? Something about her eyes…

The Man was breathing heavily. He had been so close... but it had fallen apart during the most critical time. All his effort wasted once again. He settled himself into a lotus position, closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing. He would get it this time.

Ethan stood up and walked into the bathroom. He needed to use the toilet and get some water. He took a couple of paces and swayed dizzily. He was so tired. The floor felt strange under him, too hard against his feet, painful almost. The bathroom felt too empty, like all the life and energy of his house had been drained away, replaced by these bare walls and empty corners. He tottered toward the sink and turned on the faucet, needing to splash some water on his face, but nothing came out. He turned the handle backward and forward, staring dumbly at the fixture, hearing it squeak and grate under his hand. What was that smell? Rotting leaves and musty mold. The smell emerged from the drain, dust and grime covered the sink, dirty and evil looking. Ethan stepped sharply backwards. This wasn’t his bathroom, something was wrong. The floor was warped and broken wood, the ceiling too close and claustrophobic, the toilet broken, cracked and leaning against a wall. From over his head he could hear a rocking noise, the wood squeaking, dust sifting down to settle in his hair. He knew what it was. His feet led him slowly out of the room and up the hallway toward the stairs. One by one, footstep by unsteady footstep, he moved upward toward the sound of wood groaning under the weight of the steady rocking. He tried to close his eyes, he tried to look away, but he was glued to his course. Compelled to open the door, to step inside, to see once again that ghastly face and shrunken body. With an incredible act of will he forced his eyes closed, squeezed them shut, stopped walking and willed himself awake. Willed himself to open his eyes into reality and out of this awful dream.

The Man smiled. He was close now.

Ethan found himself in his bed, snuggled deeply into his covers. His room was warm around him, welcoming. He could hear the steady breathing of his wife, her solidity and warmth comforting to him after those horrible, awful dreams. He didn’t want to wake her, but he needed some comfort, needed someone he could share these racing thoughts with and terrible fears. He’d woken up so many times, was he really awake now? He slowly moved his arms and legs. Everything seemed normal, his body felt like his own. He turned slowly over onto his side, still unsure if he’d wake her, but needing to see her at least, to take comfort in her presence. As he was thinking these thoughts he noticed that her breathing didn’t sound right. Too raspy. Like there was something in her throat. Like her lungs weren’t working, her breathing labored and forced, and so he started to worry. And then he startled backwards in horror. The woman in his bed, laying at his side, was not his wife. The old woman stared back at him, a crooked smile on her face, her hair wild and floating about her head like a ghostly halo.

“Hello Ethan,” she said in her croaking, crones voice. “Don’t you remember me?”

“Oh my God,” he screamed, unable to form any other more coherent words.

“Now now, my sweet, no need for profanity. I’ve been waiting for you for such a very long time. It’s OK to enjoy this moment.” She reclined her head backward and closed her eyes in contentment.

Ethan’s chest ached, his heart beating so hard he felt as if it was trying to escape through his ribs. “Who. Are. You?” he managed to pant out.

“I’m your Aunt Edna. You don’t remember me? Oh well.”

“Why are you here? In my room? Where’s my wife?”

“Oh? This looks like your room to you? I guess that would make sense. Don’t worry about your wife, she’s fine. It’s you I would worry about. You aren’t so fine. Not so fine at all.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Welcome to the afterlife Ethan.”

Edna started laughing and it wouldn’t stop. Cackling laughter poured out of her as the room around Ethan spun and changed, the walls fading to grey, the floor becoming insubstantial. The only thing left in Ethan’s universe was the cackling crone, bent over coughing and wheezing in merriment.

The Man stood up and brushed off his hands. His job was done. Another human delivered from his Earthly existence into the Astral Plane. Ethan had died peacefully in his sleep earlier in the night. A heart attack. Sometimes it took people a while to come to terms with their new reality, but Ethan would be fine now. He had Edna. He would be just fine.