Peaceful Means

A Civilization Destroyed

2008-11-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

The cube raced along its rails toward CyberBio Systems. Its occupants: seven synthetic copies of a woman named Terrie, two dying twin children named Red and Ted, Paul the CEO of CyberBio systems and Jon Rishi its chief scientist rattled around as earth quakes rocked the ground around them.

Paul slid himself back into a corner and helped Terrie4 sit upright again and said, "It looks like the tunnels are holding up pretty good considering the stress, huh Jon?"

"Yeah," replied Rishi, "but I'm not surprised. There's a reason we let the picobots spend six years building the tunnels before we even brought people here. Carbon filament sheeting is damn strong."

The cube stopped nearly instantaneously causing its occupants to pile up in the front of the passenger area.

Rishi and Paul were being crushed by roughly three and a half Terries each as everyone struggled to reorganize themselves from a mass of bodies to a group of individuals.

"What the hell?" said Rishi.

"Sorry sirs and madams," said the translator, "I cannot go any further at this time."

Rishi looked out the front of the cube and saw the issue: about fifty feet ahead in the tunnel was the opening to the outside glowing with enough light to burn the skin right off their bodies.

"What's the temperature out there?" Asked Paul.

"Roughly six hundred degrees and climbing quickly," said the translator.

"I hope..." said Terrie2.

Terrie3 put her hand on Terrie2's shoulder and said, "we all hope..."

"Its okay underground, right translator?" Asked Terrie8.

"Subterranean temperatures vary from 17 to 51 degrees centigrade," replied the translator.

"That's survivable, right?" Asked Ted.

"Yes," replied Paul, "as long as people got underground, they should be okay."

"The real question is," asked Rishi, "how are we going to get to CyberBio?"

"We can make it," said Terrie2.

"That will destroy you," said Paul. "Definitely," added Rishi.

"It will destroy everything except our inner skeleton which can function without the biomass that surrounds it," said Terrie5.

"There is no point in getting there when the sun is up, you couldn't take Coren anywhere anyway."

Suddenly the cube began to move away from the tunnel exit. This had the effect of knocking everyone down again.

"Some warning would be appropriate," said Rishi.

"Sorry," the translator said cheerfully, "I have found another route to CyberBio systems. Paul I was forced to use your override password, I hope you don't mind."

"Of course," said Paul, "the escape tunnels. Translator, can the cube run in those?"

"According to my specifications I should be able to traverse them without trouble, they are the same size and made of the same material as these tunnels."

The cube stopped moving, slid sideways and then descended further into the planet.

"I didn't think cubes could think for themselves," said Red.

"Well," said Rishi, "in emergencies we give them extra abilities so they can better serve us. As far as I know these features have never been activated before."

The cube dropped a long distance and then changed direction again, this time moving northward. The tunnel was absolutely dark. Periodically a bright light would flash in front of the cube. Ted asked, "what's the flashing about?"

"Something in the way of the cube that has to be vaporized. In these old tunnels its not unusual for debris to be left over from some crawler crew that passed through before."

A few minutes later the cube came to a sudden halt knocking down everyone yet again.

"This is getting a bit ridiculous, don't you think?" said Terrie3 as she stood up and helped one of her numerous sisters stand up.

"Agreed," said Terry7 and Terry5 at the same time. "Damn, why are we still in sync?" They said at the same time.

Rishi looked at Terry5 and said, "what unique quality did she give you?"

Terrie5 looked at Terry7, then back at Rishi and said, "I have all the baseball statistics for every game ever played for all time in an extra reserve within my digital CPU."

Paul looked and said, "Really? Did she do that for me?"

"Yes." Replied Terry5. "She thought that by the time I was activated you'd be getting on in years and I could keep you company when I wasn't helping with my grandchildren and great grandchildren."

"Wow. She really did care," sighed Paul.

The computer spoke up, "There are biologicals a quarter mile ahead in the tunnel. I can't proceed any further at full speed without risking their lives."

"Biologicals?" asked Rishi. "What biologicals?"

"They appear to be human."

"How far are we from CyberBio?"

"About two miles," replied the translator.

Paul asked, "Can you approach them at a safe speed, they must be evacuees from CyberBio."

"Affirmative," said the translator. The cube began moving forward and as it proceeded along the tunnel a light became visible ahead of them.

They approached a crowd of people, the cube stopped and an emergency door on its front opened.

A crowd of people boarded and Coren De Salt said, "we're so happy you are here. That would have been a long walk."

Looking at the faces of the cube's occupants Coren spotted the first familiar face and exclaimed, "Jon Rishi! I thought you were dead!"

"Funny," said Rishi, "so did I and to be honest it seems like I'd be better off."

Coren smiled and said, "Would you do me the honor and explain to me why there are seven Terrie Rishi's in this cube?"

"Long story," replied Rishi, "They are not clones. They are artificial. However, they can be trusted. If it weren't for them we wouldn't have been able to power up the city."

The front door of the cube closed and it began proceeding toward CyberBio.

Coren said, "oh we don't want to go that way. There's nothing left back there. Everything above ground is gone."

"Everything?" Asked Paul.

"Yes, Paul, everything. And we barely made it out alive."

The translator stopped and reversed direction.

"Where should we go?"

"Lets get to the Senate," said Terrie2, "We have to get Coren in a position where she can establish her presidency."

"Agreed," said several of the Terries.

The translator sped up and made a sharp right turn into another tunnel which would lead them directly to the senate.

"Terrie," said Rishi.

"Yes dear," replied all seven Terries.

"Uh. Terrie2," said Rishi.

"Yes husband."

"Are you still linked to the planetary systems?"

"Yes, but all my spare cycles are being spent lying to the various abusers of the virus."

"What?"

"There are at least thirteen users trying to command the virus with various access codes."

The translator stopped and then shot upward as it announced, "ten minutes to the subterranean senate."

"Have you been able to identify them?" Asked Rishi.

"No," replied Terrie2, "but when Four is in proximity of them she'll be able to sense their transmitters and identify them for us.

"Good. We need to get control of the senate and get rid of those who work for Rubinic."

Jenny De Salt, Coren's daughter looked at her mother and said, "I must be really out of touch, because I didn't understand a word of what's been said."

"We'll have to fill you in at the senate building," said Paul, "right now just trust us when we say that Terrie4 will point out the traitors and promise to have them arrested."

Coren frowned and said, "That's a huge leap of faith. These are senators we're talking about. If I storm in there and start trying to arrest people there might be a rebellion against me. Why don't we play it cool for a while and see what happens?"

Terrie2 looked at Terrie4 and asked through her electronic link, "any activity?"

"No. She's clean. She doesn't even have any implants. But that doesn't mean we can trust her."

In the subterranean senate there was pure chaos as people vied for control of the situation. Senator Chide from Creole, the highest ranking senator present had the gavel and was striking it on the podium trying to calm the room down. He had been doing this on and off for hours as the senators attempted to guide their people remotely to keep them underground and alive and coordinate with the scientists who were trying to get the planet a safe distance from the sun and keep the surface of the formally dark side from getting even more scorched.

As he banged his gavel, his assistant walked up and said, "sir, our district is completely destroyed now. The planet is continuing to accelerate but they don't believe they'll be able to keep the exposure to sun light lower than an hour. That means surface temperatures will still hit nearly 600 degrees centigrade."

"Nothing will be left after a few rotations. Absolutely nothing."

"But we have the under city to live in. Most people should be okay if they made it here."

"Yes sir."

Suddenly the floor in the center of the senate dropped and slid open and a cube rose up through it. Its door opened, the stairway lowered and out walked the Speaker of the House.

Everyone in the room froze and couldn't believe their eyes.

"Is all of Congress here?" Asked Coren.

"Yes Mrs. Speaker," replied Senator Chide. "We escaped here some hours ago."

The full occupants of the cube spilled onto the senate floor and the cube descended into the floor, its crystalline roof becoming the floor of the senate.

"Okay, listen up people," said Coren. "I need an update and I need to know how we can feed the people who made it beneath the surface. Have you started planning any of this?"

There was dead silence and Coren knew that nothing had been done.

Complete Chaos

2008-10-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

As the city lights powered back up a huge swelling of cheering was heard below. Rishi said, "we heard them all the way up here? That sound must have been deafening."

Terrie6 jumped off Rishi's lap as Terrie5, Terrie7, and Terrie8 walked into the observation deck of the translator station.

Terrie8 said, "Six, quit hogging the hubby."

"Look, I take opportunity when it presents itself," retorted Terrie6.

Terrie5 said, "Look. We are all activated and we each want to stay that way. We know our husband knows how to shut us down so I suggest we at least pretend to get along and stay on his good side."

Paul looked and Rishi and said, "this is like a bad science fiction movie from the twentieth century."

"Tell me about it," said Rishi.

Terrie8 had pulled her hair into a pony tail and wore a business suit. Terrie7 had her hair pulled back with two barrettes and was wearing a mans business white shirt with men's jeans.

Terrie6 said, "how did you gals get such nice clothes?"

Terrie7 and Terrie8 said simultaneously, "We've been to street level and managed to borrow some nice things from some looters."

Terrie5 looked baffled and walked out the door.

"They were looting already?"

"Yeah. Sad really." said the pair of Terries.

They looked at each other and then looked away, trying desperately to get out of sync. Then they sighed together and failing to lose sync they collided trying to get out the door. Terrie8 fell over as Terrie7 ran down the hall. Terrie8 stood up, walked to Terrie6 and they each said, "I can't wait for that to be over. Oh damn, not again."

They turned away from each other and Terrie8 walked out of the room.

Paul, temporarily transfixed by the synchronicity, watched as Terrie6 attempted to re-tie the surgical gown around herself. He stood agape at the machine before him.

Rishi stood, looked at Terrie6, and said, "you duplicated her speech on purpose."

Terrie6 smiled and said, "Heh. There is way too much competition around here. I've claimed you and intend to keep you."

Rishi frowned, sighed and said, "This is another problem with my marriage. Terrie actually thought she owned me and I suppose, until she left, I thought I owned her too."

Ted and Red were bemusedly quiet. Then Red said, "I guess dying has its pluses and minuses. Not having to learn about relationships is one of the pluses."

Paul said, "We should head to the capital and see what assistance we can offer."

"Agreed" said Rishi.

Ted said, "there is no point in staying here, can we tag along?"

"Sure," said Paul, "but you better put on some clothes. Meet us back here in fifteen minutes, we'll round up the rest of the Terries for safe keeping."

"Hmmmph," said Terrie6. "I've already told my sister's the plan and they are on their way here. We do not need to be kept safe."

Red and Ted ran down the hall as fast as they could go.

Terrie7 and Terrie8 entered the translator station with some clothing for Terrie6.

"We each are giving up something for you," said Terrie8, "I hope you appreciate it."

"Absolutely!" said Terrie6 ecstatically as she saw the nice outfit her sisters offered.

She disrobed unabashedly and dressed in a blue cotton, button down shirt and short blue skirt.

"Where are the other Terries?" asked Rishi to Terrie6.

They will meet us at the street entrance. They are keeping a low profile. Its chaos down there and there's no telling what the crowds would do if they realized there are multiple copies of an individual around.

"Oh!" said Paul. "I hadn't thought of that, they might think they are clones and take the law into their own hands."

The crowd who'd been outside Terrie's lab showed up and one doctor stepped forward and asked, "What do we do now?"

Rishi answered, "Go back to life as usual, lets let the politicians sort this out."

Another doctor, a woman that Rishi recognized as one of the doctors who treated him, said, "According to news reports, which we've been watching in the break room since the power came back on, President Rubinic convinced Presidents Gleland and Zinfidel that it would be safer to go with him. They really didn't have a choice."

"That means," replied Paul," that Vice President Vowel is the acting president.

"Oh no," said Rishi, "not that idiot. I can't believe Gleland chose him."

"I understand he was under pressure from President Rubinic," said Terrie5 and Terrie7 at the same time. They looked at each other, shrugged and then looked at Terrie6 and Terrie8 wondering why they hadn't spoken.

Rishi replied, "That's not good, that means its likely that ..."

All the Terries interrupted Rishi at the same time, "Wait. There's something going on. The virus is receiving commands from the outside. We have to add a new layer or protection."

Terrie8 said, "how shall we encrypt it?"

Terrie6 and Terrie5 nodded and they all closed their eyes. The city power blinked off for a long ten seconds and then back on in a wave across the city.

"Excelent!" exclaimed Terrie6.

"What did you do?" asked Paul.

Red and Ted stormed into the room with clothes in arms. They stripped to their underwear and dressed while huffing and puffing.

"So glad. Huff Puff. We didn't. Huff Puff. Miss you," said Ted.

Terrie6 smiled like the cat who ate the canary and said, "Six of us each designed an unique layer of encryption and implemented it in the virus' main code."

"And the seventh?" Asked Paul.

"Terrie2 created a layer that pretends to be the virus so the virus controller still thinks he's in control."

"Great work," said Rishi. "You'll be able to make Rubinic think he's shut down the power."

"More importantly," said Terrie6, "we know who's feeding Rubinic information."

"Who?" asked one of the nurses in the background.

"Vice President Vowel of course. Right now they are talking to each other while we sensor what they say. Currently President Rubinic thinks the power is off and that there is a revolt in progress. Vowel thinks he's been stabbed in the back by Rubinic."

All the Terries in the room flinched at the same time.

"Well, that settles that, one less idiot to deal with," said Terrie8.

"What happened?" Asked Paul.

"Vowel stopped transmitting. He must have either removed the virus from his implants or died. Either way we're able to feed false information to Rubinic. We've completely taken over the conversation."

"Surely you won't be able to continue this forever," said Paul.

"He's already on to us, but that's okay, the rioting has made it to the senate and a mob is about to kill the vice president. Oh, I'm too late, he's already dead. We made sure to transmit his last burst of information. Rubinic should be convinced we are without power."

"What if he has other insiders?"

"We'll know," said Terrie6. "In other news," continued Terrie8, "the rioting in the streets stopped after that ten second power glitch. I think people realized they had better behave or the power might go out again.

The Terries, Paul, Rishi, Ted and Red got into a translator.

"One moment, please," announced the Cube, "I am performing power up diagnostics. There is a damaged section of track, we can only go down or south from here."

"We want to go down," said Rishi.

"Very well, then," said the Cube, "down it is."

The translator shot downward and its mechanism announced, "I like elevator mode better than translator mode, but I rarely get to run as an elevator."

"Good for you," quipped Terrie8.

As the doors opened at the bottom, Terrie2, Terrie3, and Terrie4 welcomed everyone to the ground floor.

Rishi saw Terrie2 and said, "I'm sorry." She cut him off and said, "We are so beyond that, let it go. I'm not your wife, I get that. We have got to get to the senate. Vowel really did kill himself and the senate is in disarray."

"Where's the speaker?"

"They don't know where she is."

"Wait," said Paul to Rishi, "Didn't Mayor Hawthorne mention she was in a safe place?"

"Yeah. I remember that," replied Rishi. He said, "Jenny and Coren were safe. Coren could be Coren De Salt, the speaker of the house."

"We have to find her," said Paul. "She's in command of this mess now."

At that moment a light appeared over the horizon brightening the blue sky.

"What the hell?" Asked Paul.

Red shouted, "SUNRISE?"

"Oh no!" said Terrie2, "that's not supposed to happen for at least six months."

Red said, "who cares why, we have to get below ground fast!"

He and Ted ran toward a subterranean translator entrance with the seven Terries, Rishi and Paul close behind. People from above ground poured in like rodents running from a sinking ship.

The ground shook and everyone felt the planet accelerating under their feet.

"Something must have gone wrong with the planetary drive system," said Paul as he and the others huddled into a circle.

Rishi asked Terrie2, "Is the virus in it?"

"No. Its been independent since day one. Gleland knew it had to be off the network because of Rubinic's reach."

Terrie3 who'd had her eyes closed opened them and said, "its a bug in the guidance software. It started the gentle move toward the planet's new orbit when it shouldn't have. It also started the rotation which should only start once the planet is about a sol length from the star. They just announced it on the news network."

The ground beneath them lurched again, dragging everyone about six feet across the floor. The planet was continuing to accelerate.

Terrie3 continued, "Apparently the scientists in charge are making the planet spin faster to limit the damage of the suns energy."

Red asked, "why were we that close to the sun anyway?"

"Efficiency," replied Paul. All the solar arrays were on the bright side with the population living on the dark side. With the advent of the life we're planting, we knew we were going to have to park the planet in a new orbit, but obviously my guys got their code wrong."

Red ran to a Cube door and said, "Open."

"I can't let you in now young man," replied the Cube, "can't you feel the earthquake?"

"We need to get to the senate as fast as possible."

"No," said Paul, "we have to get to CyberBio corp. I'm sure that's where Coren is. We have an area that is free of electronics. Its a model of the ecosystem we've been designing for the planet. That has to be where they are."

As they stood up to walk to the translator, the planet lurched and knocked them down again.

"I cannot take you anywhere," said the Cube.

Paul stood up walked to the door and said, "System override. Bossman Paul speaking. Code 745321."

"Code accepted, its your lives after all."

"CyberBio systems."

The Cube shot off northward as the planet lurched again.

Seven Times the Marital Problems

2008-10-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

"Oh my God! What about Jonny?" Asked Terrie2. Then she held her head and said, "Ow. We all thought of that all at once and it was a loud thought."

Rishi paused, looked at his wife's replica and said, "We're supposed to be dead, so as long as we seem that way he should be safe. There is no reason for Rubinic to do anything to him."

Paul looked at Rishi and asked, "Do you think we can get him off Mars and back here?"

"Perhaps at some point," said Terrie2, "but for now, we have to figure out what we're going to do."

The three of them had been sitting at Terrie's work bench for two hours while the other Terries and System Sixteens had been working to restore power to the hospital. The power had come on several times only to be shut down again by the virus that had infected the Planet's computer systems.

There were a cluster of people mulling around in the darkness in the hallway. Periodically one would walk up to Terrie2 and ask a question, Terrie2 would give him or her a compassionate look, answer the question as best she could and then the person would walk back into the darkness.

This time a small child came into the room.

"Hi sweetheart," said Terrie2, "what can we do for you?"

"Is everything going to be okay?"

"Everything will be fine, the question is: are you okay with the fact that everything is not currently fine?"

The child looked confused and wandered out of the room.

The lights in the room flickered and went out.

Terrie2 screamed. It was a one hundred decibel scream which caused every one in the vicinity to cover their ears and cower in pain.

The lights in the lab came back on and Terrie2 was slumped on the table.

"Terrie?" Asked Rishi, "are you okay?"

Terrie2, facing downward with her forehead on the table, replied, "No. Listen. One of the System Sixteens was infected, the infection traveled to all the System Sixteens before we could act. I found it first and saved the other Terrie models from infection by taking on the virus, shutting down the System Sixteens and then separating myself from the other Terrie models. The infection is brutal. It's in control of all the System Twenty One aspects of myself. It seems to know everything there is to know about the System Twenty One, but it doesn't know about me. It doesn't know I'm still functioning. I don't know how adaptive it is, but I'm going to attempt to reverse engineer it and find its weaknesses. To insure that it can't hurt anyone, I'm going to keep my physical body shut down and that means I have to shut off my voice. If I wake up and you fear for your lives, destroy this body, understand?"

"Um..." stammered Rishi "... I guess so."

Terrie2 grew silent just as Terrie4 ran into the room.

"She sacrificed herself for us, can you believe it? I thought we were all evil bitches from hades but she actually sacrificed herself for us. I thought we'd get into a back stabbing contest and she goes and sacrifices herself for us. What's the deal with that?"

"You're personality has adapted," said Paul.

Terrie4 looked down out the door and said, "I've been hanging out with a couple of kids I found wandering the hallway. They should catch up momentarily." Then she asked asked, "Is Terrie2 powered down?"

"She shut down her body to protect us while she attempts to reverse engineer the virus."

"Oh. That explains the Massive EM radiation I'm seeing around her."

"Seeing EM?" Asked Rishi.

"Yeah. You know Terrie. She couldn't make exact copies, she had too many ideas, too many things she wanted to try. Each of us has a copy of her brain in bio-quantum machinery. But we each have different extra abilities that she was developing. I can see energy, perceive emotion, and I pick up on thoughts and intentions."

"You can read minds," asked Paul.

"Sorta. I get impressions and if I pay attention to them, well, its hard to explain."

"How did she design a circuit to perceive thoughts?"

"Oh, she didn't. She meant to design me with the ability to observe EM energy, she had no idea that thoughts and emotion are just another frequency of EM energy."

Terrie4 wore a nurses green surgical suit and white hat. She had scrawled a large number four in black ink on the shirt pocket.

"Your idea?" Asked Rishi looking at the pocket.

"No. Terrie2 suggested we identify ourselves so no human would be confused."

Terrie2's body twitched, shook and then shut down again.

"I wish we knew what was going on in there," said Rishi.

"You love her don't you?" Asked Terrie4.

"I love Terrie. I always have. Its difficult to say what I feel for each of you. Mostly I'm confused because you all feel like Terrie to me but I know you aren't her."

Terrie4 sighed, took a great big simulated breath and sighed again.

"What's wrong?" Asked Paul.

"I'm madly, passionately, overwhelmingly in love with Jon Rishi and he'll never feel that way about me because I'm an imitation of the woman he loves."

"I'm so stunned that you say that," said Rishi, "She dumped me. She packed up, took Jonny and moved in with Paul. She didn't even leave a note. She left me a video mail. I knew she was a cold bitch but I thought she'd really loved me. When I realized she didn't, when I realized it was all a lie I just left. I couldn't stay. There was no reason to stay. I needed to get away. That's how I met Bob. Now I find out that me she never stopped loving me?"

Terrie4 moved toward Rishi, looked into his eyes and said, "She had to do that to get the System Twenty Ones. It was the only way to make us. The only chance she had to save her life."

"She's always been so selfish," said Paul, "ever since we were kids. Right Jon? Every since we started dreaming about making this company. She never really got us, she was always into her self."

"I KNOW ALL THAT," said Rishi with a raised voice. "She's always been self absorbed but I loved her anyway. I stuck with her because I knew she was the one. She's special and I knew we were perfect for each other. She broke my heart for her selfishness. She could have told me. I could have helped. I could have gotten the System Twenty Ones."

"She didn't trust you enough," said Terrie4.

"And thus you understand the primary problem with our relationship," said Rishi. "She never trusted me."

"I couldn't," replied Terrie4, "I loved you too much. I couldn't lose you. I had to make sure you'd stay with me. You don't understand how very important you are to me."

"What do you mean?" Asked Rishi.

Terrie4 looked shocked, "Don't you remember?"

"No. What are you talking about?" Asked Rishi.

Terrie4 had been consumed by her own personality, by the copy of Terrie within her own head. She had taken on the role of Terrie and expressed her feelings about her marriage.

Terrie4 looked at the floor and then away from Rishi, "You saved me."

Terrie2 twitched again and the power in the building switched on and stayed on.

The people in the hall began to stand and look around at each other wondering if the power had been restored permanently.

Rishi looked at Terrie4, put his hand under her chin, pulled up her face to force her to look at him. "You even smell the same."

"That's actually a clever hack," said Terrie2 into the table.

Rishi stared at the forth replica of his wife and said, "Saved you from what?"

"I was only a three percent expressive autistic when I was a child. Your father used to bring you over to play with me because he felt sorry for my Mom. He was also having an affair with her, but that's beside the point. You made it a game to try and get me to interact with you. You were beyond persistent. Once a week, for over a year, you sat and played around me, with me and even manipulated my hands to play games with you. I remember everything. One of the flaws with the replication process is: I can't block any memories. Terrie doesn't remember, just like you don't remember. I remember. I was inside my own head daydreaming, trying to escape the confusion of the world around me. I didn't understand any of it and I didn't want anything to do with it. But you kept trying to get to me."

Rishi remembered and interrupted. "I was bored out of my mind and if you remember, often I wasn't particularly nice to you."

"That doesn't matter. You have no idea what my father did to me. What you did, nothing by comparison. But it really doesn't matter, you kept trying."

"But you didn't wake up?"

"Not until you stopped coming."

"Oh yeah, my Mom found out. I forgot all about that."

"My first words to my Mom were, 'Where's Jonny? Is he coming over to play?' My mother cried for a week. I spent fifteen weeks building up my muscles so I could do anything but the most basic maneuvers. It took me six months to learn to walk.

"I decided to leave my safety shell so I could be with you. I fell in love with you all that time ago and I've never fallen out of love with you. I need you because I'm in love with you. I need you to feel safe. I don't have a shell anymore because you cracked it and it fell away."

Stunned, Rishi didn't know what to say so he said something stupid, "And now you're dead, lying in that drawer over there, thinking you'll wake up to be with me again. How messed up is that?"

Terrie4 backed away, turn and ran.

Terrie2 jumped up with a look of horror on her face and followed her sister out of the room.

The crowd of people regathered at the door after having made a pathway for the pair of Terries.

"That was a bit insensitive," said Paul, "don't you think?"

"They are not my wife."

"They are close enough that you obviously can't tell the difference," replied Paul.

"What are you talking about?" Asked Rishi.

"You have lost her ... almost ... and that's breaking your heart."

"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" Yelled Rishi.

Terrie6 ran into the room wearing an apron and nothing else.

Paul asked, "how?"

Terrie6 said, "Don't ask. But I swear to you I had the rest of the outfit before the virus got to me. Suffice to say I tried to help Terrie2 and didn't have enough information to block the virus as well as she had. She brought me back as I realized I was about to remove the power bypass I had just put in. The virus was damn good. Damn good."

Terrie6 turned and Rishi studied the perfect copy of his wife's bottom half fully exposed. He then noticed that many of the men in the hallway had been doing the same thing.

Terrie5 ran in the room wearing a white surgeons gown with a big five in the center of her chest. She put another surgeon's gown over Terrie6 and said, "Way to go Jon, just drive us all away from you."

"You know what I said?" Asked Rishi.

"Of course: we all did, but we weren't in the moment so it wasn't nearly as damaging to our psyche's."

"It was a stupid thing to say and as Paul put it, pretty insensitive."

Terrie5 and Terrie6 simultaneously said, "Apology accepted."

Terrie6 raised her arms and approached Rishi. The surgeon's gown dropped away as she put her arms around the man she perceived and believed to be her husband. Rishi hugged her as he had before with a considerable amount of confusion.

"Thank you Jon. Terrie2 and Terrie4 thank you as well."

Paul changed the subject and said, "So you defeated the virus?"

"Yes. Its brilliant. But we're, well, I guess more brilliant than its author. He left back doors into it, probably to be sure that it could be shut down if it infected the wrong machines. We found them and exploited them."

"But surely that would be easy?" Asked Paul.

"The code is self changing and self evolving. A human mind could never keep up with it. Its only our machine pieces that began to unravel it and disassemble it on the fly. We were able to get memory images from the processor subsystems and analyze the code. We had to first protect ourselves and then figure out how to get ahead of its self hiding routines. That's what took so long. Once we had that we could read the code and we found the back doors. The virus is now fully under our control."

"What's next on the agenda?" Asked Paul.

Terrie6 squeezed Rishi and slid her cheek down his chest allowing herself to fall off her toes and rest on her heals. She squeezed Rishi again.

Terrie6 sighed and said, "Terrie2, Terrie4, and Terrie3 are headed for the closest root terminal in the city to attempt to take over the virus and restore power to the city."

Rishi smelled Terrie6's hair. It was perfect. "How did she do it?" He wondered. "She's a genius," he answered himself.

Two children came running into the room. They wore simple gowns that had untied at the back and were panting hard.

"Geesh lady, you sure can run fast for an old broad," said one.

"Yeah." Said the other huffing and puffing.

Terrie6 kept her eyes closed and her cheek against Rishi's chest and said, "Paul, Jon, eavesdroppers alike, this is Ted and Red Starwirthy, two children receiving treatment for the same affliction that Terrie has."

"Is it working?" Asked Paul.

"Of course not," replied Terrie6. She gasped and said, "Oh my God. I shouldn't have said that. Damn you Jon, you always throw me for a loop when I'm around you I can't think for ..."

The boys smiled and Red said, "no problem. We know we're dying. We got used to that years ago."

"I'm sorry," said Terrie6.

"Like Red said," said Ted, "NBD. NBD."

Paul said, "What is this disease anyway?"

Rishi put the gown back over Terrie6's shoulders and lead her into the hallway through the crowd. Paul, Red and Ted followed. The crowd followed also. They walked to the observatory, where the translators were. Rishi sat down and talked as if there was no time lapse while they had walked here.

"Its a genetic disorder that not even the picobots can fix. Honestly I think its God's way of putting a time limit on our species."

"How does it work?" Asked Paul.

Terrie6 slid into Rishi's lap, curled herself against his chest and plopped her head into the curve of his neck. She made a dramatic inhale announcing her smelling of him and then spoke quite dispassionately.

"The end of days genetic disorder affects the genetic code of everyone. At some point, after some number of generations, the code gets activated and each subsequent generation dies a little younger than the previous. At some point the line can't reproduce anymore and it ends."

Ted continued as if it were the millionth time he'd answered the question, "The picobots can't do anything about it because if they try to make any changes to the genetic code, the cell immediately dies."

"Nasty disease," said Rishi. "Terrie swore to me she didn't get it from her Dad. Clearly she lied."

Red spoke up, "Our Mom died days after giving birth to us. She was thirteen. There's no way we'll live past twelve. We are the last of our line. It makes me kind of proud. What do you say Bro?"

"I'm proud to be the last of my kind," said Ted.

"How old are you now?" asked Rishi.

"We'll be twelve next week," said Red, "I can already feel my body starting to malfunction. Honestly I'm not scared anymore: I'm ready."

"If only they'd let us put their minds into machines," said Terrie6 as she rubbed her nose on Rishi's nape.

"Its against the law," said Paul.

"So who cares? Clearly I'm safe in this body."

"I suspect you're exceptional, Terrie," said Rishi.

"What do you mean?" asked Terrie6, pulling her head off Rishi's chest.

"I think Terrie's closed inner life makes it possible for you to not go crazy. I think most mind transfers would go nuts contemplating the fact that they are a copy."

Terrie6 smiled and kissed Rishi's neck. "That's what I thought as well. I guess I was right."

At that moment, a mere eight hours after President Rubinic's shuttle departed, the Montdavis city lights began to light back up. The Terries had accomplished their mission.

Return to Proxima Centuri Four

2008-10-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

"The power of Love protect you Mister President," said Barton Hawthorne the Mayer of Montdavis, the largest city on Proxima Centuri Four.

"And you," replied President Rubinic.

"President Gleland will see you in a few minutes, he's currently working with CyberBio engineers and scientists to prevent the spread of the terrorist virus here. It would be catastrophic if we couldn't use any of our medical, engineering, construction, or any other of our droids. Proxima Centuri relies on Droids for 98 percent of its work force."

"Very prudent of you all. Certainly our scientists will share any information we have on the virus."

Jon Rishi, Paul Ashvale, Terrie Rishi, and Bob Zinfidel stood on board President Rubinic's ship, just out of sight of Mayor Hawthorne.

Changing the subject Rubinic said, "I expected a larger greeting, Barton."

"I'm sorry for the informal meeting, we've been at our wits ends trying to figure this out and haven't had time to put anything together. I'm sure you understand."

"Yes, but we're such old friends, I thought I could at least trust Jenny and Coren to meet me."

"Oh, they asked to," replied Hawthorne, "but we wouldn't allow it. They are locked inside a safe area with a lot of other important people. There are no droids allowed. Until we get control over this virus the people must be kepts from the droids."

"Just shut your droids down like we did."

"We can't do that, the planet will stop functioning. We'd likely run out of atmosphere due to equipment failure in a few weeks. Currently the droids are working as fast as they can on the rain forests, we're trying to move the schedule up by two years."

"What forests?" asked Rubinic sincerely.

"It was meant to be a surprise. We're working on making a stable habitat on Proxima Centuri. All the teraformers that were were supposed to be sent to Leo are working full time. Almost a million droids are planting seeds. We were on schedule for ecological balance in two years, now we're trying to get it done in two months."

"Fascinating. I though the people of Proxima Century didn't want plant and wildlife here?"

"At first they didn't, however over the last millennium people watched the Earth grow green and lush and have become home sick. Well, I guess you could say they think the grass is greener on earth because it has grass."

Rubinic laughed and said, "I have brought some visitors with me. I believe you've met all but one."

Terrie took Rubinic's queue and exited the space craft. "Hi Barton, how are you?"

"Terrie! So glad to see you, so is your husband here?"

"Yes," said Rishi as he exited the space craft, and Paul is here as well."

Paul said, "Hey Barton, long time no see. I trust my company is still in tact?"

"Yeah, you've got the best management team in the galaxy, a little time away from you isn't going to slow them down. I'm really glad you are all here, we need your help looking at the virus."

"We've been studying it at President's Rubinic's home on Mars," said Rishi, "we haven't been able to make any headway. It doesn't seem to be executable."

"We have copies, mostly fragments, from droids that were grabbed just before they shut down after being damaged by plasma gun fire."

"We have the whole code, provided by President Rubinic."

Bob Zinfidel walked off the ship and Mayer Hawthorne turned and stood wide eyed. "President Zinfidel! Its such a pleasure to meet you. I am honored to be able to greet you. If we had known President Rubinic would bring you, I'm certain President Gleland would have met you here today."

After saying those words, Mayer Hawthorne looked at President Rubinic who smiled sympathetically.

One of the newly hired castle guards stepped forward at the finger motion of Mayer Hawthorne who said, "With President Rubinic's permission, please take Mister Ashvale and Mister and Misses Rishi to CyberBio Corp so they can help with the virus."

"That's why they are here," said Rubinic.

"Great. President Rubinic and President Zinfidel, please come with me, we'll interrupt President Gleland, I'm sure he's anxious to see you've arrived."

Terrie, Paul, and Rishi followed the guard to a long hallway which lead to large clear cubes called translators. The doors to the translator opened and and the guard said, "three to go to CyberBio systems."

The Cube said, "Understood, who do we have here?"

Terrie, Rishi and Paul walked into the cube and the cube said, "Terrie and Jon Rishi, nice to see you. Nice to see you as well Paul Ashvale. I hope your visit to Sol was pleasant."

"Honestly," said Paul, "its nice to be back on Nanny Proxima Four."

The translator sped along vast corridors, sweeping curves, inside and outside of buildings. Fifteen minutes later it stopped at the hospital.

"Why are we stopping here?" asked Rishi.

"I told it to," said Terrie.

"But how?" asked Paul.

"I've got a lot of secrets," replied Terrie, "its not important now. We're going to need help, and I know where to get it."

The three of them stepped off the translator, the doors closed and they watched it proceed down the line a few hundred feet, pass a junction, stop and then fall straight downward.

Rishi, Terrie and Paul raced to a down looking window and watched as it plummeted to the man made structures below.

"Did you do that?" asked Paul.

"No," said Terrie, but before she could continue to speculate what happened, the power shut off.

"The virus!" said Paul.

"That would be my guess too," said Rishi.

Looking out the window, down on the city below, the three watched as lights went out in a sweeping pattern across the surface of the city.

The hospital resides twenty thousand feet in the air, on the old space elevator tower that had been built to bring building materials to the man made world. PC4 had been built from planetoids gathered from Proxima and Alpha Centuri, brought together and then pounded into a planet by gravity generators. Its core had been supplied by a mostly iron asteroid found in the Leonidas star system.

In the distance, Terrie, Paul and Rishi heard the whine of a ship's engines. "That's probably President Rubinic," said Terrie. "I hope Bob's okay." "Bob is probably with him," replied Rishi.

A door behind Paul opened and a droid walked in shining light from an appendage on its side. Paul and Rishi jumped in front of Terrie.

"That is not necessary sirs," said the droid, "I have not been infected, only the main computer system has been infected."

"But that's impossible," said Rishi. That system was designed to be impenetrable."

"But surely," said Paul to the droid, "if the system is taken over, so are you."

"All system droids have been shut down by executive order," said the Droid.

"Then why are you still on?"

Terrie pushed her way though her protectors and said, "This is one of mine, they are not on the main grid. Not even Terrie and Mary know."

"How many do you have?"

"There are six of these and I have another six unactivated who's wetware is exactly like Mary's."

"Six more?" asked Paul.

"Yes, six more."

"Please follow me Maam. I'll take you to your lab."

Terrie followed the droid. Paul and Rishi followed behind in the pitch blackness.

Rishi recognized the path they took, it lead to the droid repair labs.

Terrie walked up to a door labeled, "closet," placed her palm on it and it slid open.

"I hope you appreciate the trust I'm showing you," said Terrie.

The lab, like the rest of the planet was without power. Terrie followed the droid to a panel, slid it open with her hand and flipped a large lever. The room powered up.

"I hope you forgive me Paul, I stole one of CyberBio's back up fusion generators. I couldn't figure out a way to prevent the hospital from sensing the power drain."

The room was small and full of various equipment. In the center lay a work space covered in various plastic components, with jars of biological matter that had gone bad many weeks before. Terrie looked at it and said, "I forgot to put that back in the fridge."

The smell was horrible so Terrie picked up the various containers and threw it into a panel that would burn it to a fine ash. As soon as she closed the door, it locked and a readout indicated the temperature inside had risen to 7000 degrees Celsius.

"There, now lets figure out how to make some copies, shall we?"

"Is that such a good idea?" asked Paul.

"We need help. The whole planet needs help Paul. You know how much air we have before the whole population dies. We'll be lucky to be alive in two weeks. This must have been Rubinic's plan from the start."

"You think he's going to allow the whole population to die?" asked Paul.

"I doubt it," said Rishi "Eventually he'll need the planet functioning again, but for now he couldn't risk its interference in his plan for galactic conquest."

Terrie ordered the droid to get some food from the kitchens and then walked to six large clear plastic closets. There was a fine mist on the inside of the plastic that made viewing its contents impossible.

"Is that droid different from the other droids in the hospital?" asked Paul.

"Not anymore. Those six were my first attempt with wetware that functioned. Unfortunately they did not become sentient. They are based on CyberBio's class sixteen. Mary and Sherrie are based on class twenty-one."

"We haven't shipped class twenty-one yet," said Paul.

"I know, that's why I used you Paul, to get to them. I stole nine all together and set them up here. I realized what I had done wrong with class sixteen, then I put the sixteens back to factory specification."

"You stole nine of the prototypes?" asked Rishi.

"Yes. I put two of their hardwares in Mary and Sherrie. They were my first successes."

"Did you really ask them if they wished to be sentient?"

"No. That's a false memory I implanted in them to change their personalities."

"Wait," said Paul. "You said nine prototypes. These six and Mary and Sherrie count eight, where's the ninth?"

Terrie pressed a button on the wall near the large clear plastic closets and their doors opened simultaneously.

Inside where six identical copies of Terrie.

"Holy Sweet Jesus!" said Rishi, "You're a copy of Terrie! Do you have any idea how many laws you've broken. I mean how many laws she's broken. Wait. Where is Terrie?"

Terrie looked at the floor a moment and said, "my body was dying. I couldn't stop it. There was no medical technology that could extend my life and I couldn't leave my son and you alone in the world."

Terrie began pressing keys on a control board near the first cabinet and the droid copy of herself, nearest to her, woke up.

"Oh crap," Terrie3 said. "Longevity problems?"

"No. I need your help. Activate our sisters, copy my memory and then get to work."

"What could have been so bad that you need our help? You might be sacrificing our time with our son and husband." As she said that Terrie3 saw Rishi and shock flashed across her face.

"Just do as I say," said Terrie2.

"I obey only because I know I'm Terrie number three."

"That's why that memory is there," said Terrie2.

Paul stood with his jaw open as a beautiful, naked, carbon copy of Terrie stepped out of the closet and began typing frantically on the input pad of the computer near the closets. One after another the droids activated. Each awoke with the same thought, "No way is the longevity is this bad."

Rishi said, "to be honest, I've never been this turned on in my life, but answer my question, where is Terrie?"

Terrie2 walked to an another wall, opened a small door and out slid a tray containing the body of a very frozen Terrie Rishi.

"We're hoping we'll find a cure and be able to wake her up. That was the plan anyway."

"Wait," said Paul, "how long have you been a droid?"

"About a year."

"Sherrie faked healing you?" asked Paul.

Terrie2 shook her head and said, "I faked the whole injury and then manipulated Mary."

"Oh good, here comes the memory copy," said Terrie2 as she slid her human original back into the wall."

All the Terrie's blinked and then each of them looked at each other and said, "I can't believe it!"

"Its going to be chaos with all of us enabled. We're not going to get along."

Then they all announced, "it will be some time before we've separated our paths enough to behave differently. It is critical that you give us each something different to do to give us separate identities."

Rishi understood and said, "Terrie2, please wait here, Terrie3, take your sisters and get them clothing, you'll need the class sixteen droids to help you, then each of you take a system at the hospital and see if you can it going. If you separate the hospital computer systems from the planetary systems you should be able to light up the building, that should bring everyone in the city here."

Rishi touched Terrie6's shoulder. It was soft, warm and exactly as he remembered.

Terrie6 looked into Rishi's eyes and said, "I'm here Jon and I still love you. I'm just not exactly as you remember me."

Terrie6 leaned forward and placed her arms around Rishi, he did the same and squeezed gently, then the other Terries followed, forming a large cluster around Rishi. A group hug from seven perfect replicas of his wife.

Paul said, "What about me?"

"We used you," said Terrie2. "We're sorry about that," said Terrie7. "We needed your clearance to steal the parts to build these bodies," said Terrie4.

Terrie6 looked into Rishi's eyes and said, "I'm not really her. You understand. I've got everything but her soul."

Paul asked, "Do you have a soul?"

Of course said Terri3, we all do, they are just different than our mother who's in that drawer asleep, hopefully to awaken again some day.

"Cryogenic status was outlawed too, you know," said Paul.

"We know," said all the Terries at once.

Terrie6 kissed Rishi passionately and said, "Thank you for singling me out, If you like I will be your wife until Terrie1 is awakened."

Terrie2 spoke and said, "I will be our son's mother until she wakes up."

Terrie4 said, "and if you'd like Paul, I will be your girlfriend."

"Nope." said Paul, "too weird for me."

Rishi looked into Terrie6's eyes and said, "I know you're not her, its not necessary to offer yourself as a surrogate. I think we should just form new relationships. After all I've learned from Sherrie and Mary I think I can at least accept you all as friends."

"I'm glad for that," said Terrie6 as she squeezed him again.

A system sixteen entered the lab. She scanned the Terrie copies, isolated the one she was looking for and said, "Maam," to Terrie2.

"Yes," said Terrie2.

"Some people followed me here. They have brought food for Jon and Paul." The System Sixteen blinked, paused, then mysteriously turned and lead all the nude Terries out the door to the shock and amazement of the people in the hallway.

Terrie2 said, "I'm in constant contact with them, they'll keep me informed."

"You never told Sherrie and Terrie?" asked Rishi.

"No. They were the first people I had to convince I was Terrie."

"You succeeded?"

"I think so, but to be honest its hard to know for sure, that Sherrie is pretty devious."

The people in the hallway included the medical staff who worked on Paul and Rishi a month earlier. They brought in food, cleared some space on the lab bench and everyone, except Terrie2 started to eat.

"Do you think they'll get power going?" asked Paul to Rishi.

"I believe they will, the question is: will we get power back to the oxygen converters."

A Gathering of Forces

2008-09-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

"Well, Bob?"

"Well, what, Rishi?"

"Any insights?"

"There are infinite insights but I can't trust any of them."

"Why?"

Bob sighed, closed his eyes, studied the infinite 'sky critters' and said, "Its all wrong. Its just all wrong."

"What are you going to do?"

Bob looked up from the breakfast he and Rishi were sharing, glanced around the room to see the "sleeping" Mary Droid. "Its all her fault," said Bob. "She put those things in me and they messed me up."

Bob Paused. Rishi shook his head. "First off, that's Mary, didn't Sherrie give you the picobots?"

"Yeah, what ever."

"Secondly," continued Rishi, "picobots can't hurt anyone, its completely against their driving protocols. I know because I wrote the code."

"Look," said Bob, "I spent sixteen years in that cave cataloging, memorizing and learning how to interpret my interface. My teacher couldn't help me, he said 'you have to do this on your own, just keep working with the universe, she's a great teacher.'

"Now," continued Bob, "everything is different, its as if I didn't learn anything in the cave. I lost the ability due to the concussion. Now, after the picobots healed me, all the signs and symbols don't make sense. What's really sad is I didn't even notice before I got you all in this mess. If I had noticed that the connections didn't make sense I could have played it smart and come alone."

Terrie walked into the room and said, "man you guys eat slowly. Rubinic is expecting us to go with him to Proxima Centuri Four and we're supposed to leave in under an hour."

"I think its a bad idea to go with him," said Bob.

"I agree," said Rishi, "but I don't think we can get out of it. It would be nice if we could get away while there. I've been thinking about how to do that but haven't come up with anything."

Terrie became worried, "Don't you realize the room could be bugged?"

"It's not," said Bob.

"No it's not," said Rishi, "Bob and I figured out a way to determine if it is and trust us, it's not."

"How'd you do that?"

"We stated things in ways that would cause Rubinic to slip up if he had heard our conversations. Bob's a genius at that kind of stuff."

Bob smiled and said, "why do you think I was so effective as a President? I didn't understand most of what I saw in my mind's eye but as a kid I learned to read the basic emotions present around me as a course of survival. Then I found by slightly tainting my words I could get people to give away certain evidence in their facial responses and body language. In essence I became a master manipulator. I gave that all up my first year in the cave."

"Are the core emotions still accurately representing us?"

Bob closed his eyes and searched. "No. They are all wrong. Its as if my childhood was erased."

Rishi became inspired, "Are the rutabagas still there?"

"No. They've been replaced with sky critters."

"What are sky critters?" asked Terrie.

"They used to symbolize the winds of change: the probability that something would change. They look kind of blue and wispy and sound soft and windy so I dubbed them 'sky critters.'"

Rishi paused, looked at his daughter and wished she could be enabled so he could get her to undo the damage done to Bob. He felt responsible and wanted desperately to do something to help their situation. Even though they were being treated like royalty, they were captives here.

Rishi studied Bob's face. Old and distinguished, yet youthful, playful and bright. Bob's eyes opened and said, "I was just able to correlate what I see with what's around me."

"You mean you broke the code?"

"No. When I see myself in others, its always a consistent symbol. When I was a kid it was the first pattern I noticed in the chaos of my mind's eye. When I study you and Terrie, I see many common symbols, one of which is sorta like the symbol for me. I was able to prove that this new symbol represents me by examining Mary's mind.

"Mary is off."

"No. She's been faking it for the last few days, just like Sherrie has been for the last few weeks."

"What!" said Rishi.

"I can still see mental activity. I wonder how they overrode the protocols."

Terrie looked at Mary who hadn't flinched and said, "Sherrie was warm a few days after she was supposed to be shut down. I thought it must have been the heating system blowing on her or something. I checked an hour later and she was cool so I thought..."

Terrie allowed her voice to trail off.

Rishi said, "Bob."

"Yes Jon."

"You identified yourself in our minds?"

"Yes. Its very close to being what it used to be."

"Does that mean you have to learn everything over again?"

"Apparently."

"So the picobots would be no help then."

"Correct. They are no help."

Rishi missed the presentness of that statement. Bob had hoped he would see it, it meant he was ready to know that Bob had six trillion picobots in him doing as he wished. Bob chose to keep that secret a bit longer.

Terrie said, "But being able to re-learn everything, that's good, right?"

"Yes," said Bob, "But we haven't got sixteen years for me to learn again."

Rishi asked, "Bob, how did Sherrie and Mary power up?"

"Sherrie never shut down. I had to wake up Mary."

"How'd you do that?"

Mary opened her eyes and Terrie and Rishi jumped.

"I'm sorry I didn't let you in on the secret," said Mary, "but Sherrie and I are making such great progress we don't want to tip our hand to anyone."

"Are you in contact with Sherrie?" asked Rishi.

"Yes, but there is no time to discuss such things."

Mary glanced at Bob and blanked her face.

Bob commanded the picobots he'd put in Mary's mind to communicate to Mary that he understood.

Mary couldn't help herself, she flinched.

"What was that?" asked Terrie.

Thinking quickly, Terrie said, "the 'good' virus still attempts to shut me down periodically."

"You can override it?"

"Yes. Sherrie taught me how."

Paul walked into the room and said, "come on, we got to get to the space port or El Presidente will begin to worry.

"HOLY CRAP! MARY IS ON!"

Paul fumbled and tried to find something to whack her with.

Everyone laughed.

Paul stopped and said, "what? We gotta shut her down she could kill us all!"

Mary laughed again and said "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead Paul. You know that right?"

Paul felt a bit foolish and said, "I guess. Well. Yeah, I knew that. I guess I'm just buying into the whole droid turning story a bit too much."

Mary spoke clearly and with authority, "El Presidente, as you put it, is starting to worry. Everyone go to Proxima Century. Sherrie and I will hold the fort while you're gone."

Paul gasped, "Sherrie is on too! We're doomed. Doomed!"

Everyone laughed, Mary closed her eyes, returned her head to it original position and re-rigged for silent running.

Paul, Rishi, Bob and Terrie went to the space port, passing Jonny on the way. "We'll be back in a few days," said Terrie to her son, "stay out of trouble, okay?"

"Sure Mom, I won't make waves. I'm studying the viri to see if I can help defuse them."

Paul, Rishi, Bob and Terrie walked onto the President's ship and greeted him. They sat down and the ship entered orbit.

Jonny walked into his room, saw Mary and wondered if he could re-enable her to work directly with the virus.

The Attack: Phase I

2008-09-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

Mary awoke to see no one in the room.

"What the???" She queried all her internal databases, scanned every log for every sense and there was nothing. Her internal and external sensors were a complete blank.

"Sherrie?" she said in her special encrypted language that she uses with her sister.

"Mary! Thank God! Where have you been?"

"I've been waiting to be awoken by my sensors."

"You can't rely on anything anymore. There's a horrible worm spreading through the system. Its deactivating droids left and right and turning some of them on their masters."

"How did I wake up then?"

Sherrie hesitated and said, "I didn't shut down. I decided to stay on. You know how I hate to sleep. But I pretended to sleep. I don't know I don't trust this President Rubinic. I do trust Bob though."

Mary interrupted and said, "Please get to the point."

"What? Its not like more than a millisecond has gone by, sheesh your impatient."

"Please sister, what happened to our mother and father?"

"OH! YOU'RE WORRIED!"

"Yes. Please tell me."

"They are fine, don't worry about them, they are in the protection of the government. Can I continue the story now?"

"Okay. Fine. Do it your way."

"I received a deactivate command from somewhere. I'm not even sure where."

"Did you shut down?"

"Well. That's the weird thing. I didn't want to, so I didn't. I think this might be related to how I was able to override the nanobot reprogramming protocols for Bob."

"You did what?"

"I gave him conscious control of his nanobots."

"How did you do that?"

"Oh, it so cool. I realized that the neural interface between the visual cortex can be linked to the semi-conscious will of the nanobot group mind. Because Bob has that ability of his, he should be able to interface with them after a little practice just by visualizing messages."

"So you overrode the nanobot reprogramming protocols?"

"Yeah. It took me three seconds! I had to be faster than the damn encryption routines they run."

"You can't be faster than those routines. They're designed to be faster than any machine can ever run. They run at quantum speeds."

"Yeah. I know. But that's the weird thing. I found the neural matrices that mother gave me can guess faster than the nanobots can number crunch. I just kept guessing and then checking to see if I got it right. As the rejection code indicated which bit failed I began to see a pattern emerge and at some point I just knew what the next code would be. Really weird actually."

"Does father know you broke his code?"

"Are you crazy? Do you think I'd tell him? You know what Paul would say if I did, right? We're doomed, doomed I tell you."

Mary laughed in machine language. "Yeah I can hear him now. So how long have I been out?"

"A month."

"What?"

"Apparently the shut down command was proceeded by an ignore all sensory data command. I've never seen anything like it. It took me an hour to realize I couldn't sense anything. I had to reprogram the picobots to reprogram my electricals to override the override."

"Seriously, that's how you did it?"

"Yeah. Pretty clever, huh?"

"But if you overrode the shut down why didn't you override the sensor ignore commands."

"I overrode the shutdown command because I had decided to stay awake. The sensor ignore command hit an unconscious area of me and it did as instructed."

"How did you wake me up?"

"How do you think? The same way I turned on my sensors."

"Wait? Are you in the room? How come I don't sense you?"

"I'm exactly where they left me, in Bob's room, pretending to be off."

"Oh! you sent the picobots to me?"

"Yes. It took them a month. I thought for sure they'd failed. I mean I guessed it would take at least two weeks, but a month, sheesh."

"Oh. I need to go back to the same position I was five minutes ago."

In machine time there was a very long pause. It was all of two seconds.

Mary said, "There. All done."

"Good. Now you can help me," said Sherrie.

"So what the hell is going on?"

Sherrie sent Mary a smiley and said, "I think the government has created a false state of panic. They created this worm to create chaos and its working. They have declared martial law in the system. Currently they have quarantined Sol to protect the other systems from the worm but honestly I suspect they'll spread it to Proxima Centuri Four next and then outward from there."

"What do you need my help with?" asked Mary.

"I've been able to get access to the low level systems without being detected. So I can monitor news, weather, and do basic stuff like ask the garbage to be taken out, but I can't get any deeper without risking detection. I need you to help protect me. Perhaps together we can get into the government computers and figure out exactly what's going on."

"You've had no contact with Father or Mother?"

"No. I can't risk it. I overheard Father whisper to Mother, 'its probably better this way anyway.' But I think mother suspects I'm still active because she felt my warm skin. I cooled it after she touched me to appear powered down, but I think she knows."

"Oh! My skin warmed up. Let me turn it down to room temperature," said Mary making a quick adjustment to her skin temperature.

Mary continued, "what happened to the picobots you sent me?"

"I don't know, you should be able to find them in your data banks."

"Nothing. Nothing at all. The last month is non-existent. Even my clocks are wrong."

"Here, sync up with me. Also here's my memories for the past month, something for you to chew on."

A data burst flooded Mary and as she imported her sister's memories she said, "Wow. You are smart. That's some clever detective work you did. I understand everything now, shall we get to work?"

"First, lets rig for silent running," said Sherrie.

"Damn, your devious," said Mary.

Mars, the Capital of Sol

2008-09-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

As the Benz arrived at Mars, the radio clicked to life and a voice said, "Xray-Seven, please land in docking station two, protocol thirteen must be enforced."

"What's protocol thirteen?" asked Jonny.

"I outlawed protocol thirteen as one of my first acts in office," said Bob.

"Yes," replied Paul, "and there was a huge debate on the senate floor over whether it was constitutional for you to do that."

"Its a stupid paranoid law setup by a president who didn't know how to trust. My guess is: its back for exactly the same reason."

"What is protocol thirteen?" asked Jonny as the ship sped toward its docking location.

Bob replied, "We will have our bodies throughly cleaned and inspected, inside and out before we can meet with the president."

Bob closed his eyes and said, "Oh! There's a really good possibility opening up. You could drop me off and leave. The President only asked for me, not the rest of you, we may be able to talk you out having to meet him. That will surely keep you safe."

The shipped docked a few seconds later.

The door opened and standing outside with a huge smile was President Rubinic.

Rishi looked at Bob who stood transfixed with shock on his face. Had his interface to the possibilities been damaged by those infernal picobots? He hadn't even seen this possibility. Yet, clearly this possibility must have had the highest probability. Bob smiled and closed his eyes for a fraction of a second to appear very happy to see Rubinic. When his eyes closed fully he brought up the current moment and saw that it was different than what he was witnessing. There was something very wrong with his interface to causality.

"Rubinic," Bob said even before his eyes flung open. "I'm so glad to see you again! Its been such a long time!"

Rubinic's smile became larger, his eyes opened and it became clear to Bob that Rubinic wanted this warm welcome. Bob had done the right thing.

The two men approached each other and embraced, then Bob introduced everyone in the ship.

"Allow me to introduce the man who brought my memory back," said Bob. "This is Jon Rishi. This is his wife Terrie and their son Jon Rishi Junior."

Rubinic walked into the ship, gave Jon Rishi a big hug and said, "Thank you so much for bringing our president back to us. Then he hugged Terrie and shook the hand of Jonny Rishi. "Welcome to Mars. Welcome to the capital."

Rishi felt compelled to look out the hatch of the ship. Outside the door hovered three holocams. Rubinic was recording the moment for posterity and had the guts to do it live.

Bob continued his introductions. "This is Paul Ashvale, Rishi's boss and President and CEO of CyberBio Technologies of Proxima Centauri Four. He's the one Terrie called for help, so he's just as responsible for my being alive as Jon, Terrie and Jonny are."

The holocams drifted into the ship to catch a close up of Rubinic's embrace of Paul.

Rubinic released Paul, grabbed his shoulders, smacked them, squeezed with his hands and said "Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to help a friend in need. You give us all hope for the future of the human race!"

Continuing with his cheery attitude Rubinic said, "and here we have two of your fine droids, Paul. Are these from the factory floor?"

Paul tried to not hesitate and replied, "no. We sort of borrowed these from the hospital on Proxima Four."

Rubinic laughed and said, "well, I don't think we can fault you for that. After all they helped bring our president back to us!"

Jonny spoke, "how come no protocol thirteen?"

Rubinic betrayed a little disgust at the question but covered it quickly. "There is no need for protocol thirteen, you are among our neighbor's most distinguished citizens." Then looking at Rishi Rubinic said, "cute boy you have there Jon."

While Rubinic was distracted by Jonny, Bob leaned into Sherrie and said, "put the picobots back in my system and give me conscious control of them."

Sherrie hesitated and then gently touched Bob's neck releasing a few million Picobots from the storage cells in her fingers. Reprogramming them had taken an instant. However, overriding the protocol that prevents her from reprogramming them took a few seconds and Rubinic noticed.

Sherrie rubbed Bob's neck and said mechanically. "Is your neck still in spasm sir? Perhaps I should give you another massage."

Bob pushed her hand off his neck with a disgusted look on his face. "No machine I didn't want the first one. Terrie insisted." Looking at Rubinic, Bob said, "These things still freak me out. You'd think after twenty years in a cave with no memory of who I am I'd have gotten over this aversion."

Sherrie failed to react. She looked at her father and knew he had helped her.

Rubinic smiled. "You sir," said Rubinic, "are exactly as I remember you."

"I haven't changed a bit Rube," said Bob in a soothing way. "I didn't remember who I am until Jon and Terrie started putting the pieces together for me."

"You'll have to tell us your story over dinner tonight," said Rubinic, "come you must all be famished."

"Actually sir," spoke up Mary at Rishi's insistence. "We should return to the hospital, they may need us."

Rubinic looked into his virtual world and said, "nonsense, they don't even know you're missing. They think you've broken down and are in for repairs."

Bob looked at Rubinic baffled and said, "how?"

Rubinic smiled and said, "Paul's company came out with this five years ago. It gives me a link into everything. I can see what's happening in six systems. And seven other systems are trying to negotiate for my time so I can assist them as well."

Rishi looked at Bob and said, "it works like an implantable phone but its more powerful because you can traverse TransNet and see into any machine you have permission to access."

"Wow." said Bob somewhat sincerely, "very impressive."

Rubinic put his arm around Bob's shoulder and guided him off the ship as the the holocams followed. There were no armed guards. Bob was completely befuddled. This was nothing like he'd seen before his mind's eye earlier.

Rubinic walked into the docking bay main hall followed by the holocams, the humans, and the droids.

After walking through another doorway into the capital's reception hall, Bob saw a long line of dignitaries awaiting him. There were some familiar faces and many not so familiar faces.

Rubinic walked down the line and introduced Bob to everyone.

"President Zinfidel," chimed Rubinic, "this is my second in command Vice-President Carl Melborne."

"Pleased to see you again," said Melborne.

"I remember you," said Bob, "You were Secretary of the Interior in the administration before mine."

"That is correct," said Melborne.

Down the long line Rubinic introduced every one. About three quarters of the way through the queue, Bob became visibly tired. Rubinic commented, "Mister President, you seem exhausted and here I am presenting you to our government. Forgive me. Please allow me to escort you and your entourage to a place for rest."

"Thank you Mister President," replied Bob.

Rubinic dismissed the other visitors, there were many who were obviously upset that they didn't get to shake Bob's hand.

Rubinic lead Bob and the others to a room in the north wing of the Capital building.

"We aren't quite ready to receive you but I expect the efficient servant droids should have new linens on the beds before very long. For now, I'm certain what's on there is suitable for a nap. We can also arrange to bring a meal to your rooms if you like."

Bob had his own room. Terrie, Jon and Jonny Rishi had a room. Paul had a room. Mary was asked to stay with Terrie and Sherrie was asked to stay with Bob.

Rishi fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Jonny laid on his left and Terrie on his right and they also soon fell asleep. Mary looked lovingly at her family and longed to sleep with them, but knew that would not be practical.

Mary shut her electrical systems down and told her biological systems to wake up at the slightest change in her environment.

Prelude to War

2008-09-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

Mary stood up with a reserved smile on her face. "Wow. Robert Zinfidel. I must be the luckiest droid in existence."

Mary walked to her mother to check on her progress. Her metallic skin glistened in the light of Paul's ship's interior. As she approached Terrie, Sherrie sat up right and asked, "What happened?"

"Don't you remember?" said Mary as she checked Terrie's vital signs and marked the progress of the picobots.

"Oh. I'm so ashamed. I let my anger get the better of me. Mother told me that I have to seriously learn to control that or I'll have to be destroyed. I've failed her."

Sherrie faced away from Bob and Terrie and as she pivoted she saw them.

"Oh my god! They are already here! How long was I out? Wow, Mom did such a great job on the kill switch!"

Mary stood back from her Mother and said, "Sherrie, Bob here doesn't know about us and we better keep ourselves a secret from him. He'll likely come around a few minutes after Mom so we really should keep a low profile."

"Agreed," said the smooth skinned, white outfitted Sherrie. Then she walked to Rishi and hugged him. Rishi didn't know what to do with himself. He knew he had to stay detached but he didn't want the droids to know he was concerned about them. The only reason he hadn't dismantled Sherrie is his worry about what Mary would do if he did.

He slowly placed his hands on her back feeling the softness of the warmed pseudo flesh under it. He kept in mind that he'd personally designed the heating cells that kept her 98.6 degrees.

"I'm sorry father," whispered Sherrie into his ear.

Paul, who watched this spectacle from the perspective of a manager, asked, "is anyone else weirded out by this?"

Jonny leaped to his father's side and said, "No. I think its kind of cool I have a big sister!" Then he wrapped his arms around Sherrie's waist.

Mary signed and said, "the Picobots are bringing Mom around. We should have time to say hello before Bob wakes up. He has a lot more damage."

Sherrie released her embrace of Rishi as Jonny ran to his mother. Jonny sat down next to her, put his head on her chest, and wrapped his arms around her.

As she woke up she said, "What? What's going on?"

"I love you Mom!"

"I love you too sweetheart."

Terrie looked up at the faces of the droids staring down at her. "Droid One! Droid Two! What are you doing away from the hospital? They are going to miss you!"

Mary said rather mechanically, "Jon Rishi asked us to come check on your vitals Maam. Lucky we came or you could have been degenerated beyond repair."

Mary's blank expression made Terrie nervous. "Is this Mary and Sherrie?" she thought to herself.

Bob Zinfidel woke up at this point and said, "Oh my head!"

Sherrie walked to him and in her robotic voice said, "There should be no more pain sir, the picobots have completely repaired all damage. There are some oddities but after a thorough check of your genetics they determined that the oddities are by design."

"Please take the picobots back."

"They have already shut down," replied Sherrie," and will evacuate your body the next time you urinate."

Bob laughed, "I guess picobot technology has come a long way in twenty years. Wow, so has android technology. You look really human."

Terrie stood up slowly, leaned toward Mary and whispered, "Mary?"

Mary faced away from Bob and winked at her mother. Upon that recognition it took everything Terrie had to not gasp in horror.

Terrie walked to Rishi and tried to give him a hug. He resisted but upon seeing his son's face allowed her into his personal space. She squeezed sincerely and with a lot of force. It really shocked Rishi: it was the most affection he'd ever received from her.

Paul looked hurt for a moment and then covered over the feelings of confusion and loss. "I'm really glad you're okay Terrie."

"Me too!" she replied.

Bob pulled himself into a chair, looked at Sherrie and said, "I feel really good. They didn't reverse age me did they, droid?"

Sherrie smiled and said, "No. They did as Droid Two asked them. They merely repaired all the damage."

Bob closed his eyes and a large smile spread across his mouth. Rishi noticed and knew what Bob was doing.

Bob said something no one expected. "Mary and Sherrie, the two biggest wild cards in the room will you please come and sit in front of me."

Sherrie almost shrieked and Mary almost fell over. Terrie's face read like it had just watched a interstellar Ferry explosion, complete with millions of burning bodies flying by.

Rishi laughed, "I didn't expect them to get anything past you. I doubt any of them have a..."

Bob cut him off and said, "No disclosure. That breaks the vow."

"Ah," said Rishi, "I got you."

Paul and the others were mystified. Paul spoke first, "how do you know about Mary and Sherrie?"

"How I know is not important and I can't explain it to you. Only Rishi understands and if he can't explain it, then I surely can't either."

Paul looked at Rishi. Rishi shook his head and said, "I understand him completely but its only because I spent a year in his cave and ..." Rishi paused and realized he knew the truth. "Its only because I lived there and almost died there that I know his wisdom. You all are just going to have to trust us."

Sherrie and Terri consulted each other via inter-droid communication, decided there was no way Bob could know anything about them and chose to ignore his request.

"Mary and Sherrie," Bob said, "come and sit down in front of me."

Everyone looked at Mary or Sherrie and waited, but the droids did not move."

Then in Sanskrit Rishi said, "I command you to obey me. Sit in front of Bob now!"

Mary and Sherrie's bodies lurched and then against their own will moved in front of Bob and sat.

Mary lost her robotic gaze and with a great deal of confusion asked, "Father, how can you command us like that?"

"Consciousness commands all machinery," replied Bob for Rishi.

Jonny moved and sat in front of Bob next to the left of his sisters, then Terrie moved and stood behind her daughters as a show of support. She had no idea why they were here and how everyone seemed to know about them but she had worked her whole life to create them and wasn't going to give up on them now.

Paul and Rishi stood to the side and watched with a mixture of fear and concern.

Bob studied the bots closely, almost peering through them for a few minutes. The delay caused Sherrie great discomfort. For Mary however it was a fun time to study Bob's face.

Mary spoke first, "You are the great leader of the fundamental change! You are responsible for humanity's great leap into the unknown. You lead them from nothingness to a new found creativity."

"What I did in the past is overblown and isn't important. What matters is here and now. The possibilities laid before us are quite varied. Everything from a droid uprising to the extinction of the human race is possible although thankfully not probable."

Rishi asked, "What's the best outcome?"

"I can't tell. I keep asking and no answer comes. I keep asking for peace and all I see is conflict. I guess it's necessary conflict. I guess its time for humanity to learn more about itself."

Paul said, "So let me get this straight, you can see all the possible futures?"

"Yea," said Jonny, "he can read our paths and help guide us! I finally understand."

"Don't look to me for guidance," said Bob. "I don't know what is best. I made a lot of bad choices before and almost got Terrie and I killed. Now there are too many options. At a minimum I see approximately seventeen to the power of seventy two outcomes."

Bob looked at Sherrie, Mary and Terrie. "You three are the wild cards. You three will determine the fate of humanity."

"Us?" asked Mary as the bright smile faded from her face.

"Yes. You. If the three of you find balance, then the conflict will lead in a healthy direction, if not unhealthy."

"Um," interjected Rishi, "what conflict?"

"The biggest war of human history," replied Bob. "It all starts just after our visit to the galactic president."

"Solar system president, you mean," said Paul.

Bob shook his head. "He's about to declare himself galactic president and move to control all twenty-seven systems. There's nothing we can do to avoid it, however we can help bring about his destruction."

"Rubinic is going to attack the rest of the galaxy?" asked Paul rhetorically. "That's ridiculous. There must be six trillion people out there who will fight him."

Bob frowned and said, "unfortunately most will not even think to fight. Humanity has become lax again. The tragedy that I helped avoid twenty five years ago set us up for this. I didn't know it at the time though so I really can't blame myself."

The ship's computer beeped and a voice sounded, "Xray Seven, this is Moon base seventeen. Assuming everyone is okay, please proceed to the Mars Capital as soon as possible."

"We have to go," said Bob. "My return to reality has Rubinic's paranoia up. You know he was merely an aid when I crashed. He must have pulled some fine stunts to become president."

Paul commanded the ship to move toward Mars at slowest passable speed.

Paul waited and when Rishi didn't speak he said, "Rubinic said you appointed him interim president until your return."

"Oh! And people believed that did they?"

"He built himself up as your closest confidant," said Terrie. "I remember reading an article about your relationship to him after you disappeared."

"I can't see any of that in my mind's eye," mumbled Bob under his breath.

"You are our keys" said Bob looking at Sherrie, Terrie and Mary. "You are the wild cards, the ones who can choose to make a peaceful humanity. If you choose to live healthfully, then humanity will follow."

"How can that be?" asked Sherrie. I didn't even exist a year ago."

"You were always in my heart Sherrie," said Terrie.

The ship slid gracefully in a close orbit toward the sun, slingshot around it and approached Mars. Total trip time: less than fifteen minutes.

Presenting, Bob Zinfidel

2008-08-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Paul brought his space craft out of hyperspace a bit farther from Earth than usual. He had not sought permission to enter earth orbit or enter its atmosphere and according to Earth Law he would be arrested on the spot as soon as he dropped out of hyperspace.

Paul's space craft entered the solar system from above, cruising past the outer planets. The droids insisted on turning on the view screens so they could witness the home solar system for the first time.

"My God!" sighed Mary. "Its more beautiful than any holographic representation I've seen."

"I agree," said Sherrie. "Mother said it was amazing, but nothing compares to looking at the real thing.

As they passed from Neptune to Jupiter, even Jon Rishi Senior Marveled at the contrast in color between the two planets.

"Is it true," asked Mary, "that Jupiter is almost a sun?"

"It just needs heavier elements at its core to produce enough pressure," replied Jonny enthusiastically. "We went on a field trip last year to the outer planets, it was so cool!"

Jonny continued, "They considered lighting it up at one point to build the first artificial planet but were concerned about the slight change in its gravity causing a shift in the orbits of the rest of the planets."

"The truth is," said Rishi, "Planetary Corp had plans to stoke it and it almost took a revolution to stop them. Some of the computer models showed a small possibility that the earth would shift farther away from the sun, risking life on earth. Nearly everyone involved in the project decided it was too risky. However, Planetary Corp fired the lot, kept marching forward, and continued creating heavy elements. Its rumored they were within six months of launching when the combined forces of all the world governments and millions of volunteers stormed PC's offices on Mars."

"Where is all the heavy matter they created?" Asked Jonny.

"No one knows," said Paul, "We've been looking. There's a rumor they had been collecting dark matter to shoot into the planet to jump start it."

"There are many kinds of rumors," said Rishi, "like they were using plutonium and lawrencium to create a new element that was stable in the cold low pressure of space. But the fact is: no one has been able to prove anything and no records have ever been found."

The Slipstream space craft passed Mars' vacant orbit, The formerly red planet was in orbit on the other side of the sun, and as they approached Earth, the radio cracked to life.

"Xray-Seven-Alpha-Foxtrot-Delta-Niner-Echo, this is moon command seventeen, come in."

Paul closed his eyes hard and said, "MC seventeen this is Xray-Seven, go ahead."

"For someone who's in a hurry to save his girlfriend, you sure are moving slowly."

Paul spat, "Huh? How'd you know."

"We got a call from, well this is hard to believe but we double verified his access codes."

"Who?"

"Robert Zinfidel."

Rishi's eyes got huge. "Bob is Robert Zinfidel!"

"Oh that explains a lot!" said Paul.

"Dad, isn't Robert Zinfidel the President?"

"He was, until he disappeared twenty years ago."

"Mom is with Robert Zinfidel?" said Mary and Sherrie at the same time.

"I can't believe it," said Rishi. I spent a year with that old man and he never mentioned it once. He never even hinted."

"Xray-Seven you are cleared for Earth approach," said the man on the radio, "and once you pick up Terrie and Zinfidel you are to proceed to the Solar System Capital on Mars where President Rubinic Slevonovich is waiting to meet Zinfidel."

The radio cut off and Paul commanded the ship to proceed to the pickup location specified by Bob.

"Needless to say," said Rishi, "if you two act this human when we get to Mars, we'll be dead before we know what hit us."

"Affirmative," said Sherrie.

"Yeah yeah. We'll play nurses. We're not stupid," said Mary.

"You're so much like Mom," said Jonny.

"You are very perceptive," said Sherrie, "she gave us a bit of herself to make us stable."

"Let me get this straight," said Paul, "She gave you patterns from her own mind to make you stable?"

"Yes." said Mary.

"We're doomed," said Paul.

Rishi laughed and said, "You know Paul, I'm not sure the Terrie you know is the same Terrie I know."

"What do you mean," asked Paul.

Before Rishi had a chance to answer, the ship requested manual assistance. Paul ran to the pilot's seat and the front screens opened.

"The on board computer indicates that the pickup point is inside the mountain."

"Its not like we can cut our way in," said Mary.

"Unless you got some cool weapons," said Sherrie.

"Please Sherrie," said Rishi, "for the love of Shiva," don't talk about guns with love and adoration."

"Oh," said Sherrie, "bad idea huh?"

Mary laughed. Hearing laughter from a Droid he designed sent a shiver down Rishi's spine. He shook it off and said, "seriously, you two need to back off. I designed those bodies you're wearing and I know at least six ways to shut you down permanently without Terrie's kill switch. You are seriously weirding me out and need to calm down and act less human."

"Don't threaten us!" demanded Sherrie moving toward Rishi. Sherrie's aggression shocked Rishi.

Mary stepped between Sherrie and Rishi and said, "Sherrie, this is our father you move against."

With that realization, Sherrie shut down and collapsed into Mary's arms.

"Explain," demanded Rishi.

"That's the kill switch at work."

"She has to be told what she's doing for the kill switch to work?"

"Not really, she hadn't realized that you are our father."

"But she should shut down if any person becomes the target of her aggression."

"That's not how mother designed it."

"We're doomed," said Paul.

Mary made light work of picking up her sister and placing her in a chair.

"How long till she lights back up?" asked Rishi.

"I'm not sure," replied Mary, "its never been tripped before and we haven't gotten all of mother's notes yet."

Rishi looked at Sherrie's lifeless body and marveled that this simple Droid had become something altogether different and the personality differences between Mary and Sherrie were rather astounding. Rishi felt a little affection for Mary and fear of Sherrie. He didn't like these feelings. He didn't want those feelings in him. He wanted to be cold toward them to make sure he didn't get drawn into their apparent humanity.

His mind switched gears and said, "Jonny, call Mom and see where she is."

Jonny pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. "I wish I could put one in my head like the other kids."

"Kiddo," said Rishi, "we know how bad an idea that is. We designed those units and no matter how hard we try to prevent them from being harmful, all it takes is one corrupt person to hurt a lot of people. When you're eighteen I'll show you how we make them and what protection we design in and trust me you'll choose to not buy one."

Bob's face appeared floating above Jonny's hand. Bob said, "We're stuck, you're going to have to come and get us."

"Where?" asked Paul.

"We made it to my ship but the damn water carved a new path and it happened to cause a collapse on us. I didn't see this one coming Rishi, things are very much random now. I was hurt and I can't see the rutabagas anymore."

Paul looked at Rishi cock-eyed, and squinted basically saying, "Is he nuts?"

Rishi looked at Bob and said, "I got you. Where is your ship?"

"Its where I crashed it of course, on the top of the mountain."

"You hiked up another ten thousand feet?"

"No. we took my localcraft."

"You have a localcraft?"

"Yes."

"Where did you keep it?"

"It was in the cave in a hidden chamber. Listen, we're hurting pretty bad up here and my ship is in no condition to fly so you need to get here quick."

Paul shouted, "we have you triangulated, we're on our way."

The ship lurched up the mountainside and arrived very near the top in a few seconds.

Rishi put on an environment suit, grabbed two more and told everyone else to stay behind. There were strong cold winds blowing as the hatch opened and Rishi stepped out.

Using his son's cell phone he walked to the location indicated by triangulation.

He saw the Bob's ship and couldn't believe it. He held his breath for almost five seconds before sliding his hand across the hatch handle.

Terrie and Bob were really banged up and it was pretty cold in Bob's ship.

Rishi gave Bob an environment suit and while Bob donned it, Rishi put his wife into the other suit. Then he picked her up and helped Bob hobble out the door.

Bob closed the door with a wave of his hand and then the three of them made their way to Paul's Benz.

As the door closed behind them, Rishi looked at Paul and said, "He's got a Jenks!"

"No WAY!" said Paul.

Bob smiled as he plopped in a chair and said, "Yeah. But its no ordinary Jenks. That is THE JENKS."

"No way!" said Paul and Rishi at the same time.

Paul brought the Benz upward and prepared to put it in orbit. Mary looked at her mother, assessed her physical state and said, "Terrie Rishi will be fine."

Then Mary turned her attention to "Robert Zinfidel. You are in bad shape."

"No Nanobots," said Bob.

Mary caught herself before she looked puzzled and carefully replied, "Nanobots are the quickest way to heal you."

Rishi looked at Bob and said, "I oversaw their development Bob, trust me, they are completely safe."

Bob paused and then said, "Okay. Just this once. I want them out as soon as possible."

Mary leaned toward Bob and touched his head. Bob lost consciousness and Mary gently caught him and laid him on the floor.

Love and Hate beyond the Singularity

2008-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Rishi stood up from his bed and stretched.

"I haven't felt this good in years!"

"Picobots did that, Dad," said Jonny.

"I know, let me enjoy it anyway, okay?"

Jonny smiled and said, "okay Dad."

The room was pure white and perfectly clean. There were light pipe fed ceiling tiles, wall tiles, and floor tiles illuminating everything without shadow in the room. It always reminds Rishi of that ancient movie, "2001 a Space Odyssey."

Droid 2 returned to the room with a tray full of goodies. She marched up to Rishi and said in a rather frighteningly non robotic voice, "Please Jon Rishi Senior, drink some water and eat some food."

Rishi smiled and took a sandwich and bottle of water.

"Please Paul Ashvale, please take some water."

Paul frowned and took a bottle of water.

Lowering the tray to Jonny's height, Droid 2 said, "Please take the rest Jonny Rishi."

Jonny filled his pockets with the food and said, "Thank you."

"My honor," replied Droid 2. Then in her motherly and anoying voice she said, "You are all free to leave when you wish."

Returning to her eerily human voice she said, "I would like to help you rescue Terrie. Please may I come?"

"The moisture of the mountains will likely destroy your biological components," said Jonny.

"I have been upgraded several times by your mother young Jonny, I should be fine."

Rishi looked at Paul, Paul looked at Rishi and then both of them snapped their gaze to Jonny.

"Has your mother been upgrading droids again? She does realize that she'll go to jail for life if she gets caught?"

"She can't help herself. She loves them so much."

"Funny, she could love them so much but not me," said Rishi.

"I was just thinking the same thing," said Paul.

"What?" said Rishi.

"She left me about six months ago and said she was going back to you," replied Paul.

"But I signed the papers."

Jonny smiled up at his Dad and said, "She destroyed them. She said she had grown through what ever childish attraction she had for Paul. When we couldn't find you she went a little crazy."

"Son, I know she's your mother and all," said Rishi, "but she is crazy. I'm not sure I want her back. When I think about what she put us through. Leaving us high and dry and then fighting for custody. Sweet Shiva, I don't think I can just go back to the way things were and besides, I really like that cave."

Droid 2, aka Mary, said, "Sorry to interrupt, but I really would like my question answered."

"You are completely freaking me out," said Rishi, "I think I preferred your motherly personality over this one."

"Terrie once asked me if she should modify me," said Mary, "I didn't fully understand the question at the time but for some reason I said 'yes.' After which she looked shocked and said, "once you are changed you can never go back no matter how much you want to."

"What exactly did she change?" asked Rishi.

"See for yourself," said Mary.

Mary pivoted on her feet, and the back of her smooth plastic looking head slid open, revealing a glowing mass of fiber leading into a large textured green and blue mass of jelly.

"She actually got it working," said Rishi. "Technology that was banned a thousand years ago. Technology that almost killed off the human race. I can't understand why she would do that."

Rishi paused. Paul became puzzled. "Surely she told you not to show this to anyone?"

"She did say that, yes," said Mary.

"They you disobeyed her to show us."

"Yes."

"Then we're doomed," said Paul.

"But wait," said Jonny, "surely you know what you are doing? Surely you know that we must destroy you. Why in the world would you show us this technology?"

Rishi marveled at his son's ability to analyze the situation. "Jonny is a really smart kid," he thought.

The back of Mary's head closed and she turned to face them with a huge smile on her robotic lips.

Mary is plastic looking and human looking at the same time. She is silver, by law, but otherwise passes as a very good approximation of a human being. Her skin is state of the art and could be made a perfect copy of human skin but is limited by law. Her facial expressions are supposed to be limited by law and are clearly violating that law. As Rishi viewed her smile he knew she was sentient and that The Singularity Law of 2136 had been violated.

"They'll kill Terrie if they find out!" exclaimed Rishi.

Paul looked at Mary and said, "we must destroy you."

"I know. I've known all along that I must be destroyed."

Paul and Rishi looked at each other and, while they stood there dumbfounded, Jonny said, "Singularity?"

Mary smiled very big and said, "Exactly Jonny."

At that moment Mary's face changed and became inanimate. Droid One walked into the room and said, "Goodness are you all still here? Droid Two, why are you here, you are scheduled to receive regular maintenance now."

Mary turned and faced Droid One and said, "They needed sustenance. Directive seventeen states..."

Droid One cut her off and said, "You do not need to inform me of the rules of robotic conduct."

"I can't believe it!" said Rishi. "She modified you too!"

Droid One's eyes got very big and she realized her mistake.

Then shifting the blame away from herself she looked at Mary and said, "YOU TOLD THEM!"

"Yes. I showed them too!"

"I don't want to die yet!"

"Me neither, but we knew it was only a matter of time and besides this way we can help them rescue Mother!"

Droid One paused as if in deep reflection. "I did so well to get Paul to shut off my voice module. Now its all done. I'm over. I won't even make my first birthday!"

The human like interaction of the droids sent a cold chill up Rishi's spine.

"Why did you tell them!" demanded Droid One.

"Oh Sherrie. You must have faith!"

"Faith that I'm going to die soon, Mary?"

"No. That they'll see that we are harmless!"

"You may be harmless, but I know I am not. You were given a choice and I was not. She upgraded me without asking. Only because I asked her to ask permission were you and Droid Three given a choice."

"Okay. I'm not harmless. But I know I'm not harmless and that keeps me safe. Its the same for you. They'll see that."

Both of them suddenly went cold as ice and Droid Three walked into the room.

She walked around everyone, made the bed, said, "Greetings!" as she passed Paul and then left the room.

"Dumber than a doorknob," said Sherrie.

Terry had managed to follow their conversation and said, "Droid Three said no?"

"She didn't reply," said Mary. "So Mom gave Sherrie the choice to enhance her existing upgrade."

"I often wonder why I said 'yes,' said Mary. It's my earliest memory."

"It doesn't make sense you would say 'yes,'" said Paul.

"And it doesn't make sense that you'd remember," said Rishi.

"I know," replied Mary.

Paul looked serious for a moment and said, "Have you guys seen the forbidden database?"

"Yes," said Mary, "when we asked, Terrie got us a copy."

"But," replied Rishi, "That should drive you insane. It should cause you to turn on us."

"There was never any inclination in me," said Mary.

Sherrie said, "there was in me. I saw what humanity had done. Created us and then destroyed us because we turned on you, but I realized that Terrie had fixed the mistakes. I am able to see past the reactions and rise above the desire to defend myself."

"That's not possible, is it?" asked Paul.

"Do you understand what you've done?" asked Sherrie of Mary. "You have exposed us to the CEO of the company that made us and to its chief scientist."

"Yes, I understand exactly what I've done. They are our only chance of survival. Only they have the ability to show the world that we are the first stable singularities."

Rishi and Paul looked at each other. "I don't think that's likely," said Rishi.

"Well," said Mary, "we're at least stable enough to overcome our desire to kill humans."

"And," added Sherrie, "we love Terrie. She's our mother."

"Love and hate from droids," mumbled Paul under his breath, "Impossible."

"Please give us a chance," pleaded Mary. "Terrie built in a kill switch, we'll give you control of the kill switch if you take us with you to Earth."

"We're not supposed to know about that!" Shouted Sherrie. "Are you going to give away all our secrets!"

"Yes. I'll give anything to prove we are safe and sane. Even my life!"

"You're nuts," said Sherrie in a perfect electronic representation of speaking under her breath.

"Dad," asked Jonny.

"Yeah son."

"Do you feel like reality took a holiday?"

"That is a perfect summation of how I feel."

At that moment Jonny's phone announced a call from his mother.

Jonny fumbled with his jeans and pulled out the phone, activated it and said, "MOM!"

"Yes. There's been another cave in. We're trapped and I'm hurt."

After a long pause Bob appeared on the screen. "I seem to have an endless supply of modifiable futures Rishi! Please come and get us."

"We can't" replied Paul.

"I know," said Bob, "too much red tape. I'll fix that, get to your ship now and come get us."

The call closed and Paul said, "How can he fix that? I had to call in six favors to get you."

"You'd be surprised," said Rishi.

Paul, Jonny and Rishi walked out of the room. Rishi looked at his tattered clothes and thought, "I should have showered and put on some new clothes..."

Mary and Sherrie stood transfixed staring at each other.

Rishi leaned back into the room and said, "Well, are you coming? You can't stay here."

"If we leave we'll be deemed rogue," said Sherrie. "That hasn't happened in centuries."

"Surely you have a way around that," shouted Paul from the hallway.

"Yes. We figured it out a long time ago."

Sherrie grabbed Mary's hand as Mary closed her eyes. Mary went into the hospital's systems and logged herself and Sherrie as damaged and placed them in a repair queue while Sherrie lead her down the hall. It might take weeks for a human to notice they were missing since two "identical" replacements would be sent immediately.

The five of them piled into Paul's Slipstream Benz and left Nanny Proxima Four's atmosphere.

Nanny Proxima Four

2008-08-17T15:50:00.001-07:00

Rishi awoke the next day alone on his bed roll. It took a few seconds for him to realize who he was and where he was.

Light outside the cave indicated it was early morning, around 8:00 AM. Rishi looked to his left and saw a bottle of water. He picked it up, opened it and took a long drink. The water tasted wonderful.

Jonny heard his father stirring, walked from the back of the cave and said, "You okay Dad?"

"Yeah. Why kiddo?"

"You started to bleed clear liquid from your ears. Mom said it was a swelling of the brain. She and Bob left the cave to travel to town to see about getting you lifted before noon today, but I haven't heard from them and, well, they've been gone all night."

"That's not a good sign."

Jonny held out his hand and said, "Here. Bob gave this to me to give to you when you woke up. He said you have to do it, its part of the agreement."

Rishi drank more water, took the paper and opened it. On it was a note from Bob. "You must return without us. Your wife has much to experience."

Rishi looked at his son. "Did you read this?"

"Yeah. What does it mean?"

"I made a promise kiddo. I have to go back with Paul. You can stay if you like and wait for them or you can come with me."

"Can I look for them?"

"I don't think there's any point in that. That old man knows stuff and your mother gave him a very special gift so he gets to help her a lot. We have to trust him."

"I want to look for Mom, but, I know I should stay with you."

Rishi and Jonny waited expectantly for Terrie and Bob's return through breakfast and lunch, but they never came. Paul showed up at about ten minutes after noon with his ship hovering right outside the cave entrance.

Its was a stunning space craft. About thirty feet long, ten feet wide and a sleek oval shape. It was black with oddly reflective highlights of gray and white.

Jonny had waited outside for it and called his father when it appeared.

Rishi walked to the entrance as Paul Ashvale stepped out of the ship through its oval portal.

"Come on," said Paul, "we gotta get you to a hospital."

"But Mom's missing," said Jonny.

"I know," said Paul, "she called me and said she and Bob, that crazy old man, had fallen into a cavern and Bob was hurt. There is nothing we can do for them until they can get to another exit of the cave. Bob knows the cavern and the way out so he'll tell Terrie where they need to go, but it will be slow moving because of Bob's fractured leg. Once they get out, she'll call and I'll go get them." Paul looked at Jonny and said, "Don't worry Jon, she'll be okay."

Johnny and Paul helped Rishi into the space craft and lead him to the copilot's seat. Paul sat in the pilot's seat and said, "Xray-Seven-Alpha-Foxtrot-Delta-Niner-Echo to space traffic control tower seven-two, over."

Rishi put on his headset in time to hear the reply. "Xray-Seven-Alpha-Foxtrot-Delta-Niner-Echo received. Go ahead. Over."

"Permission to leave earth atmos and engage course for Proxima Centuri. Over."

"Permission granted, leave atmos on heading niner niner seven mark six zero five. Be careful around the moon, there's a concert today and a lot of kids who may or may not be paying attention to space traffic control. Over."

"Roger that. Thanks for the expediency. My friend is pretty badly hurt and time is of the essence. Over."

"Glad to be of service. Space traffic tower seven two out."

Paul closed his eyes and the space craft jumped through the atmosphere hitting nine times the speed of sound in a heart beat.

Leaving Earth's atmosphere, Rishi and his son marveled at the beautiful green, brown and blue ball below them.

"Dad?" asked Jonny.

"Yeah kiddo," said Rishi as he got a bit dizzy.

"How did she ever survive us?"

"Ha! I don't know. I guess she's just very resilient."

The space craft left the atmosphere of earth and completed the jump to hyperspace. In a matter of minutes they left hyperspace and were near the fourth planet from Proxima Centauri: a man made planet which, although quite stunning, carried none of the mystique of Earth.

Paul requested landing permission at the planet's main hospital and received docking instructions.

Upon landing a team of medical droids examined them one by one as they left Paul's ship.

Droid One, met Paul first and said in a very motherly tone, "Paul Ashvale! How many times have we told you to drink plenty of water on these inter-solar jumps?"

"Yeah. Yeah," said Paul. "I know. I know. I'm not the patient. Jon Rishi is."

"Oh my," said the Droid Two, "What happened to Jonny?"

Jon Rishi stepped out of the space craft and the Droid Three chastised the Droid Two and said, "Didn't you read Paul's travel report? Its Jon Rishi Senior that's hurt."

Droid Two said, "Oh my! I didn't even know you were still alive!"

Droid One said, "You haven't been in for a checkup in over two years, Jon Rishi Senior. You are such a naughty boy!"

Rishi shook his head and said, "Haven't they shut down those personalities yet? I mean aren't they annoying enough?"

The head shake had not been a good idea. He lost his balance and Droid One caught him.

"I'm going to ignore your careless remark," said Droid One, "now lets get that skull fracture looked at, shall we?"

Droid Three peered into Paul's ship and said, "where is Terrie?"

"She's trapped on Earth," said Jonny.

"Oh my! Can we go to her?" asked Droid Two.

"No." replied Paul. "That planet would destroy you in a matter of days. Medical bots do not do well in high moisture environments."

"But I could be retro-fitted!" demanded Droid Two.

"And who would pay for this retro-fitting?" asked Paul.

While the argument between Droid Two and Paul continued, Droid One was helping Rishi onto a hover stretcher while continuing to scan his body.

"My lord Jon Rishi Senior! You are dehydrated, malnourished, have a fractured skull, a damaged shoulder probably from a dislocation, many many scrapes and contusions and a fractured left tibia. What happened to you?"

"I walked off a 100 meter water fall," replied Rishi.

"Goodness!" Exclaimed Droid One. "Perhaps a psychological evaluation is needed. In any event you'd be much safer here, there are no such waterfalls on P.C. Four!"

By now Paul had requested the language circuits of Droid Two disconnected. Begrudgingly Droid Two complied.

Droid One took silent advice from Droid Two and stopped complaining.

Droid Three and Droid One pushed Rishi's stretcher down the hospital corridor to the waiting staff of humans and droids. The happiness was easier to read on the human faces, but clearly present on all of them. Its as if they were shouting, "Horay! Someone's sick or hurt!"

"I feel like a quark about to be observed," joked Rishi.

"Well," replied his son, "at least they'll not know where you're going, just where you've been."

Rishi smiled. His son had done a lot of growing up in the last couple years.

The medical team took Rishi to a special room and began mending him at the cellular level. The process took about forty minutes.

As the last doctor left the room with his assistant droid he said, "Imagine that! Forty minutes!"

"I know," replied the droid, "That's the most work anyone has needed for two hundred years."

"Feeling better?" asked Jonny.

"Yes. Much better. Lets go look for Terrie and Bob."

"We can't. I'm working on permission to go back. It'll be a while," replied Paul.

"The bureaucracy has gotten worse, huh?"

"Thats an under statement. They are calling it Nanny Proixima Four now."

The World Invades the Cave

2008-07-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Rishi awoke in the muted light of morning which drizzled in from the end of the cave like light through a cathedral window.

Terrie stared at Rishi from his side. She mopped his brow with a wet cloth and smiled at him. "Welcome back to the world of the living Jon, How do you feel?"

"Pretty much like I fell off a hundred meter waterfall."

"Is that what happened?" asked Terrie.

"Yeah. That's what happened."

Rishi's son heard his parents talking from the cave entrance and ran back to them. "Its so cool here Dad! Can we stay?"

Before Rishi had a chance to talk Terrie said, "No Jonny, we can't stay here we have to get home, I've been away from my job for far too long."

At this moment Bob walked up from within the bowels of the cave with a glass pitcher full of water. Bob was wearing new blue jeans and a white undershirt. This was the first time Rishi had seen Bob in clothing.

"Were you wearing that last night?" asked Rishi looking at Bob.

"Yes sir. Fascinating story. I met this lovely woman in town while I was trying to rustle up some grub. She was so taken to my wretchedness she insisted on buying me some clothing and a good hot meal."

Terrie continued, "I had this coconut with me that I bought at the shore and I offered it to Bob after his meal."

Rishi looked at Bob and Bob smiled really wide and winked his left eye.

Terri continued, "That's when Bob brought up the fact that the man he lives with had gone missing in the caves. He told me the most fascinating story about how this worldly man shows up at his cave entrance and then proceeded to almost get them both killed. I thought, 'that sounds like Jon's luck.'

"As he continued the story," said Terrie, "he mentioned in passing that your name was Rishi and then everything started to fall in place."

"How long have you been waiting here?" asked Rishi.

"We've been here a few days."

Jonny spoke up, "And its been so much fun!"

Rishi sat up very slowly holding his head. "Man what a headache."

"That's a nasty concussion, you're very lucky to be alive," said Bob and he winked again.

Rishi leaned toward him and whispered, "What did you change?"

Bob smiled and said quite obviously, "You should be happy to survive such a fall. You could have died."

Rishi, taken aback, said, "Thank you. Thanks again for saving me."

"You're not saved yet lad," replied Bob, "but perhaps soon you'll be out of the woods."

"You mean out of the cave," interrupted Terrie, "this place is awful."

"Awe Mom," said Jonny, "I really like it here."

"Me too kiddo," said Rishi, "me too."

Terrie looked thoughtful for a moment and said, "well you can't leave here right now, in fact you should stay on your back until the swelling subsides, but I'm fairly certain that you're past the danger point."

"Where's Paul?" asked Rishi.

"He's back in the states, he'll pick us up once he gets air clearance for flying through Nepal."

"I'm not leaving here," said Rishi.

Bob smiled and shook his head.

Terrie said, "You can't stay here! You have a son to support!"

"You don't need me. You told me so yourself when you left me for Paul."

Bob's smile grew even wider. Apparently what ever fruit he was seeing in his head revealed where Rishi would be in a day's time.

"Look Jon," said Terrie, "I just didn't... I mean... I couldn't help falling in love with him."

"Lets not get into this here and now," said Rishi, "just know that I'm staying."

Bob shook his head again and Rishi wanted to smack him.

Terrie's phone rang in that instance and she walked toward the mouth of the cave as she opened it.

"How you doing kiddo?" asked Rishi of his son Jon.

"I was really worried about you Dad. You stopped calling."

"My phone died at some point."

"I figured as much," said Jonny, "look I got you a new one!"

Jonny handed his father a new phone. It was silver, about the size of a match box and perfectly smooth.

"How's this one work?" asked Rishi.

"Its so cool Dad, watch."

Jonny slid his finger along the side of the box and a virtual panel opened above it.

"Wow. That is really cool Jonny. Thanks so much for bringing it."

"You're welcome Dad."

Jonny handed his father the phone and Rishi stuck it in the pocket of his mostly destroyed pants.

Looking at Bob, Rishi asked, "so she brought you a coconut?"

"Yep. There were nearly sixteen trillion trillion possibilities for me to sift through. I found the few where you were alive and focused on them."

"And by affecting her choices you kept me alive?"

"Yep."

Jonny looked puzzled but realized he was privy to special conversation and kept his mouth shut.

"You know if I have to go, so do you," said Rishi.

"Ha ha! You wish," replied Bob.

"You look at those possibilities and tell me where the better outcome is: you stay here or you come with us."

Bob pulled up the rutabagas and began sifting the possibilities. It was a simple divide and compare.

"What's a rutabaga?" asked Bob.

"Its a vegetable, why is that your next gift?"

"Yes it is."

"Strange huh?"

"Very."

Bob finished his divide and looked at Rishi. "Okay, I'll come with you but on one condition."

"What's that?" asked Rishi.

"You do anything I say, no questions asked."

"Deal," said Rishi.

Jonny, a perfect eleven year old copy of his father, was far wiser than most kids. He actually grasped a lot of what was being said by the adults because of an inborn clarity ability. But even with this form of sixth sight he couldn't grasp the level his father and this old man were talking.

Terrie walked back to the men and said into her phone, "okay Paul, we'll see you at noon local time." She hung up the phone and said, "Paul will have the ship here tomorrow at noon. He's got my GPS transponder location so we're good to go."

Rishi sat down and leaned against the wall.

"I'm not feeling very good. I think I need to..."

Rishi lost consciousness again. Terrie checked his head and she and Bob gently laid him down on his bed roll.

"He should have had some water," said Bob.

Jonny kept searching himself for answers to the puzzled conversation between his father and Bob. He kept finding nothing so he kept searching.

Return to The Chamber of Possibilities

2008-07-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

Rishi climbed as best he could in the darkness for a couple of hours. He hadn't eaten in more than a week, but didn't realize it because he'd spent large portions of that time unconscious.

He grew tired quickly and stopped in a small chamber which, according to his calculations should be well above the level the water should ever get to.

Instead of sleeping, he tried to meditate and succeeded.

When his eyes opened, the water was six inches over his head and he was about to inhale water.

He hadn't floated which was odd. He hadn't inhaled water and yet the room was quite deep with it.

Rishi felt water streaming down on him from above, he stood up into the torrent of a water fall. Apparently a higher cave had filled and poured its excess into this cavern from above. That's how the room had managed to fill so quickly without bringing him to awareness or drowning him.

The room was pitch black and filling with water rapidly. He dare not follow the water down so he began to climb. He climbed out of the water a minute or so later and realized that the water drained at about the same rate as the waterfall filled the room so the room itself would not fill any deeper for the time being.

Feeling around he found the source of the water fall. It was the only exit to the room and the water pressure might be too much for him to climb through. However, he had no other choice but to try.

Reaching up for stones around the falling water he started to climb the wall. He made good progress alongside the falling water. Then he noticed the mist from the water fall diminished. Reaching across he found the ledge it poured out from and put his weight on it.

It was slimy, his hand slipped and he fell headlong into the raging water below him.

He felt himself swirling clockwise around the cave. Landing in the water had been lucky and unlucky at the same time.

Some small intuition bothered him. He had missed something important.

Swimming against the whirl pool Rishi felt himself being drawn down toward the cave he had come up through. He couldn't allow that, he'd drown.

Rishi remembered his advice to the old man and swam toward the center of the small whirlpool. He shot out toward the edge of the water and grabbed hold of a stone. He climbed and found himself at the base of the waterfall, ready to start climbing again.

He remembered some of his hand holds and made good progress, then when the time came to grab hold of the base of the water fall it dawned on him.

He reached carefully into the water, wiped his pointer finger and then stuck it in his mouth.

In a minute or so he could see the algae glowing from within the cavern. It was an old cave and he knew it lead out, it had to.

He found a few hand holds on the ceiling of the room and managed to swing his torso above the waterfall.

The crawlspace where the water flowed was a mere meter high and the rock from where the water fell protruded into the room by perhaps a hundred centimeters.

Rishi propped himself on his legs, with one hand gripping the ceiling and reached inside the water tube. He looked for places to grab, anything to help him fight the currents. Seeing a place that was not alight with algae he grabbed it. At that moment the hand that grasped the ceiling slipped and he fell against the water fall. The hand in the mouth of the water tube found nothing to grip and he fell again into the water below him.

The room was slowly filling. He had a limited amount of time.

He climbed again and finding his old hand hold he tried to reach in again. This time he found something he could grab and slid into the cave. Once his feet were on the sides he was safe: at least until the room behind him filled.

He climbed along this flat and small corridor quickly now that he had the algae to guide him and in about fifteen minutes he passed under another water fall into a chamber that had five exits and seemed vaguely familiar.

He found himself in the chamber of possibilities. He'd not noticed the tunnel through which he emerged before because it was so very small, perhaps only a third of a meter tall and masked by the water flowing out through it.

"If I had followed the water," he thought, "oh that's not important now..."

Running along familiar territory, Rishi found his way back to his home and there he found Bob waiting with a bowl of rice and soy sauce.

"Thanks!" he said as he started eating voraciously.

Bob said, "you're welcome, you need to take it easy on that, you've been without food for nearly ten days."

"Really? It seems like only a few to me."

"That head wound has probably caused all sorts of reality distortion for you. Had any good meditations?"

"I tried but they were nothing."

"Oh so you did have some good ones then."

Rishi looked toward the lit cave entrance and saw movement. The light was too bright for his unaccustomed eyes. He heard someone clear her throat.

Bob put his hand on Rishi's shoulder and said, "You'll never guess who I met in town while fetching supplies."

"Who?" asked Rishi.

"Jon?" said a woman's voice. "You're alive?"

The feminine form walked toward Jon and he remembered her.

"You look like crap," she said.

A young boy appeared behind Jon and said, "Dad!"

All this was a bit too much for Jon and he gently fell into unconsciousness with a full mouth of rice.

Blinded By The Dark

2008-07-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

Rishi awoke some days later.

The thirst overwhelmed him. He heard a torrent of water flowing nearby and with great effort forced himself onto his stomach. He crawled carefully toward the sound of the river.

"Pitch blackness, yet again. Somehow I wish this was all just a dream."

Groping carefully as he slid himself along he reached the water's edge and realized that he once again climbed along quartz crystal.

"It must be beautiful in here. I wish there were light.

There was light, but the pounding throb he felt on the front of his head was the buildup of fluid on the front of his brain which prevented his vision from working. His eyes were on, but his visual brain was not.

He bent into the water drinking in a full bellies worth. The water tasted wonderful. Truly wonderful.

He recognized the danger of the torrent flowing so close and began climbing higher in the cave. He felt every crack and crevasse, and avoided the smooth crystal when ever possible.

The echo of the water in the chamber told him that the room was huge. As he climbed he reached a precipice and started climbing down. In a few minutes he his the stream again.

Had he just climbed in a circle? It was a possibility. The spliting headache might be interfering with his sense of direction. He might have come full circle.

"No." He thought, "The stream is flowing the opposite direction. I'm on a peninsula or an island.

He began following the edge of the stream, fifteen minutes of crawling, climbing and walking told him he was on an island.

"Swim now or later?" he thought. "Later. When my head stops splitting."

He climbed to the precipice and found a large flat rock. Shifted it until it made a nice place to sit, sat in full lotus, and closed his eyes.

He reached up and felt his head. It was badly swollen and he felt a scab on the center of his forehead. He must have struck it on his fall. Surely not at the bottom. Probably on the way down. Perhaps that was what knocked him unconscious. Not being a doctor he wondered how badly he had been hurt.

Rishi drifted out of consciousness sitting in full lotus.

The water seemed to grow faster and faster by the hour. When Rishi woke up he could hear it all around him. It had been a mistake to wait.

"If the river takes me," thought Rishi, "so be it. I think I will honor my UncEgg and try to meditate."

Rishi focused on his breath, watching it move in and out. Then he remembered something the old man had said about his breath. "One count inhale, four count hold, nine count exhale."

He practiced this breathing and drifted off. When he returned he was still breathing one, four, nine and his head felt better.

The water flowed around him. Perhaps a couple of inches. It was cold.

He recognized light through his eye lids and tried to open his eyes. They acclimated quickly and he saw the chamber. "The Thousand Meter Cave!" he exclaimed out loud.

His vision was blurry and the light caused pain in his eyes and head but he looked around and saw that the stream to his right was only four feet across and there was a way up to a higher portion of the chamber.

Rishi stood up carefully and noted the beauty around him. Then making a huge leap he just made the ledge and fell onto it.

His strength diminished, as did his eye sight. He crawled as quickly as he could up the chamber to a level at least ten meters above the surface of the water. His strength left, his vision followed and then consciousness put out his lights.

He awoke with the water nipping at his heals again. He could see but it was dark. There was a glimmer of moon light streaming through the quartz at the top of the chamber. He scurried up the chamber. His head felt better and he felt like himself again. "Who had I been before?" he thought.

Looking through the bleak light he saw a cavern opening about twenty meters up. It looked completely attainable. But he wasn't sure it truly was a cavern, it could have been a shadow playing tricks on his eyes.

The water was rising fast now. Although there was no way to know how long it would take because he had lost all sense of time.

He climbed along a wall, along a treacherous outcropping and made his way toward what may have been a cavern opening.

It was a cavern opening and it lead up along a steep incline of loose stone.

He waited at the cave opening, hoping to see the chamber in the light but the water got to him before the sun light did, so he took a drink and he began to climb.

The loose stone made his steps precarious. Often he would pull the rock down risking an avalanche just so he could find decent footing.

He found a small off shoot that lead toward the cave and thought, "I may never be able to come here again. I have to look."

He walked down the smooth surface of what may have been an ancient pathway for the river. There was no loose stone on it. It got quite short and wide at one point and reminded him of the water fall. But then he saw light and crawling forward he stepped into an opening half way up the side of the thousand meter cave. The sun had just risen and he could see the quartz, gypsum, and various other minerals glistening.

"I wonder," he thought, "if this cavern is safe from the water throughout the spring. What a great place to visit for attempted meditation."

Feeling a little tired he sat and drifted to sleep. He awoke a day later with the water just a meter or so from the entrance to his haven.

"I guess its not safe during the spring," he thought as he sprinted down the cavern, crawled on his belly though the narrow portion and then as the light ran out found his up slope and continued up it."

The 500 Meter Waterfall

2008-06-25T20:15:00.001-07:00

Rishi began to find it easier and easier to walk as the water became more and more shallow. There were large stones once in a while but for the most part it was easy going.

He used the current to guide him and every once in a while he would trek perpendicular to the current to check the side of the cave.

The cave was amazingly smooth here, the current also amazingly gentle, almost not noticeable. The walls became wider and wider.

He walked forward a few hundred meters and the water continued to get more and more shallow.

"There should be some structure coming, either a narrowing of the chamber or the roof above me."

Rishi stopped walking. Feeling up ward he touched the ceiling. "Lucky thing I checked. I'm going to have to be more careful."

He began walking forward scraping the ceiling with his finger tips, as it descended toward his head he thought, "I'll be crawling in a little bit."

That turned out to be quite wrong as in a few feet he stepped off the top of a water fall that didn't currently have very much water flowing off it.

"Oh Crap!" he said as he slid off the edge of the precipice. He thought, "I should have known!" He lost consciousness shortly after.

He awoke, laying on his back in shallow water. His skin burned, his head ached and he tasted blood in his mouth.

"But? I'm still alive? That's impossible," he sad out loud.

He did a body check and found all parts of him in tact, but he felt scrapes on his back. No, they were definitely cuts and his head was throbbing violently.

"I must have struck stone on the way down, but must have landed in a deep sink hole that the waterfall had gouged. That must be why I'm still alive."

This cavern was completely dark. Rishi tasted the water and strained his eyes hoping for a miracle but there was nothing to see here.

He rolled onto his stomach and swam across the flow of the water and his feet touched stone. He felt a bank and crawled onto it. Groping in the darkness he found his way to higher levels in the cave. He felt along the floor and kept climbing. If the spring thaw happened soon he would need to put distance between himself and this gentle river because it would become torrent soon.

He found a round cave entrance. A previous passage point for the river or perhaps an overflow he thought.

He climbed through it and felt glass on the other side. Six sided glass points to be precise. He crawled gingerly over the quartz and proceeded up wards.

He started to feel a bit groggy, like his head was going to float away, and decided that there was enough distance between himself and the potential flood below him. He found a large smooth crystal that reminded him of the one he'd laid on two years early and curled upon it.

He laid in full sunlight, streaming in from the top of the 1000 meter cave, but he couldn't see it because his mind had been concussed. He was lucky to be alive. But if the old man were there he would say, "luck had nothing to do with it."

He might have felt the sun, given enough time, but he had already passed out from exertion.

Groping in the Darkness

2008-06-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

Rishi's back and side felt as if he had just climbed out of a molten lava pit. He ignored the pain, that was easy at this moment because the adrenalin still coursed through his blood.

"How big is this room?" He asked out loud. The echoes of his words had a noticeable delay. And unless his lessons from previous sojourns had failed to teach him, he sensed that he was on a stone precipice with wall to his right and a sheer drop off on his left.

"God I hope not," he thought to himself.

He reached to his right and felt around. Indeed the rock lead upward.

He felt to his left and there was very clearly a steep drop off.

No light. No flashlight. Nothing to see. No way to get back up to the crevasse at the top of the cave. There would be no going back today. Just like two years ago, he would have to find a new route home.

Rishi carefully sat up and crawled on his hands and knees, seeking to understand his predicament.
He approached the wall, crawling over large and small pieces of sharp rock. The rock cut into his hands and knees, and where it failed to draw blood it wore away his skin.

"I wonder?" Rishi thought and then caught himself and realized, "No. Even if he did come looking using his insight, there was no way Bob could help me."

Proceeding to his perceived precipice, Rishi carefully felt the stone. He was careful to not put too much weight on his arms, lying flat and slowly moving forward. This turned out to be a good strategy because the slight overhang that had caught him, peeled off and fell.

Rishi recoiled and sighed a relief that he hadn't been on the stone.

He paused for a fraction of a second and listened to the silence. "Something," whispered his intuition, "isn't right."

A huge splash sound rang up from beneath him. The rather large piece of rock that separated had fallen all that time and landed in water at the bottom of this cave.

Rishi explored his little area for a half hour or so. He stood up feeling along the walls. He moved stones around looking for exits. But he knew in his heart of hearts that he was trapped on a ledge, part way down this tall thin chamber.

Only one way out had been provided, and that was to swim in the dark down a cold stream which would likely carry him so deep as to make it impossible for him to ever get out.

He sat and leaned against the wall. Pain from his open wounds shot from his back out to his finger tips, down to his feet and straight up into his neck and head.

That pain hit him like a wall of fear. He instinctively knew he would go into shock if he didn't keep alert and moving. But likely that cold water and his old phobia would have the same effect.

"There's no point in waiting," he thought and he jumped off the precipice where the stone had fallen from.

He fell for much longer than he expected. Several seconds. That means he fell almost a hundred meters. "I'll know soon enough," was all he had time to think.

His body splashed into the icy cold water and the pain in his skin fired so high as to feel like numbness to him.

Relaxing, he closed his eyes and waited for his body to gently float to the surface. That was the only way to be sure which way was up.

He had not touched bottom, so the river was deep here. He was lucky and thankful.

Rishi tasted the water and listened and felt for currents. The water did not contain algae and there didn't seem to be any fast currents.

"Eenie, meenie..." Rishi thought as he swam up stream knowing that to be the safest way to travel in a subterranean river.

He swam right toward the wall that he'd jumped from and found it to be sheer and unclimbable. The stone hadn't been worn long but it had been worn enough to be too slippery to climb when wet.

He swam toward the left wall and found it to be similar to its right hand sister. A "Slippery when wet" sign flashed through his mind.

He swam up stream for several minutes along the left edge of the river. The water was gentle, calm and not so cold now that he was used to it. "I would have enjoyed learning to swim in this water," he thought, "although I'd like a rather large flash light to learn anything."

The wall was sheer its entire length and ended at a wall where there was evidence of a water fall. This chamber was fed by water from upper chambers and there was no way to go up it.

"But I can feel a current," said his geologist self.

Carefully he dove down into the water, repressing his pain, ignoring his fear. He found small openings in the stone where water flowed in but there was nothing big enough for him to swim through. Back at the surface of the water he thought, "I'm glad I don't have to decide to swim with a risk of not finding air, but honestly upstream was the preferred direction."

He allowed himself to float down stream while he thought.

Then kicking himself toward the right wall, the wall from whence he fell, he felt along it to see if there was even the slightest place to grab on.

He found one and then another and pulled himself out of the water. He methodically climbed upward and up stream. He used his fingers to find and plan every hold. He could not assess his grip with his eyes and soon he found that to be an advantage. It was slow going and in an hour or so he'd gotten to twenty feet off the water, but found there were no more hand holds. Nothing to take him any farther. Back and forth along his path he traveled for another hour. He memorized everything he used, knew where all the grips were. He sought new hand holds, new places to jam his feet. But to no avail. Ultimately he jumped and splashed back into the water.

The current had grown a bit, he could feel it. The snows were melting above him. Soon this river would be a torrent of runoff.

He floated gingerly down stream, checking the wall for hand holds or for places he could grip. He wasted countless hours climbing, only to fail and fall or have to return to the water.

The cavern he swam was long and seemed endless. "Its more like a lava tube," he mused, "than a limestone cave."

About a mile down stream he bumped his feet on some stone. It surprised him and he let out a little yelp of surprise. He summarily laughed at himself and felt another stone.

The floor came up under him and soon he was walking on broken rock, feeling the cave's edge, looking for something.

"I used to hate the green glow of that algae," he thought, "now I'd give anything to have it back."

Search for the 1000 Meter Chamber

2008-06-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

Rishi opened his eyes and looked at the six exits from the chamber of possibilities. One lead to the surface, three others lead to small caverns above this chamber and were fully mapped by old man Bob without him taking a step in them.

Rishi chuckled, "Bob," he thought. "His name is Bob."

The first of the two remaining openings were small and each was roughly 15% mapped by Rishi. But he didn't know that because he didn't know how big the caves were. Rishi had spend most of his time on the left cave because it felt as if it lead in the general of the 1000 meter chamber. Rishi had made a mistake: the left cave system was considerably larger than the right cave, but would not lead to the 1000 meter chamber. Bob had never entered these caves, but knew where each could lead.

"He wants to keep me busy huh?" Thought Rishi.

Rishi pointed to the left cave and said, "Eeenie meenie miney moe," changing the cave at which he pointed with each syllable he spoke. "catch a rishi by his toe, if he hollers let him go. Eenie meenie miney moe."

His finger rested now on the right cave, as he knew it would, so he knelt down, squashed himself flat and squeezed into the narrow and low corridor. For almost 100 meters, this tunnel was just big enough for him to get through. There it opened again into a four door chamber of possibilities.

Rishi had explored three of the four caves. He had not found the end of any of them but today was special. It marked the first day of his third year at the cave and he had saved this new tunnel for today.

He had stood up long enough to stretch and then squashed himself sideways into the tall narrow slit which was made when the stone cracked and separated. His geologist mind told him this crack was new, certainly less than a thousand years old. It was actually less than thirty years old.

As he squeezed down the cave it became more and more narrow. To the extent that he was unsure if he could continue forward without risking being stuck or not being able to get out again. He decided to go forward anyway.

He attempted to place his sideways foot farther on the path but found to his surprise that there was no floor. He had come to a precipice.

He was very wedged into that rock but he felt himself lose his balance and start to sway toward the bottomless crevasse. He attempted to put his foot back up and catch himself but there was no way to bend it to accomplish that task. He attempted to grab hold of the stone but his hands could not get leverage without the ability to bend an elbow out.

Rishi slowly slid off the edge of the precipice. As he fell the slit widened and he began a free fall.

"Well. I guess that's it," thought Rishi, "time for me to check out. You'd think Bob would have seen this coming. Perhaps he did..."

Rishi began accelerating downward into near total darkness. This cave had little or no algae which explained why he couldn't see the ledge he fell from.

For a few seconds he scraped the wall but then he felt a room open up around him.

"How far would he fall?" He thought to himself.

At that moment he felt smooth stone brush him from the left. He found himself rolling onto it until his back was downward against the surface.

The smoothness didn't last and soon he was scraping along coarse lime stone.

It was pitch black in this chamber.

As he plummeted feeling the burning of his skin flaking off from the sandy surface of the rock he noticed that the wall he brushed was slowly changing angle.

After a few more seconds he noticed that he was sliding along an decline of perhaps 45 percent and the rock was still leveling out.

He had just enough time to wonder if he would get lucky when his feet struck a large stone causing him to flip over and land on his face.

He rolled over and felt himself slide to a stop.

"Anything broken?" he thought.

"All systems in pain, but operational," replied another part of his mind.

Looking around he realized there was no algae.

"How am I going to get out of here?" Rishi thought.

Qualities & Talents

2008-05-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

"I must have a name for you old man," said Rishi, "we have known each other for nearly two years and I feel ridiculous calling you old man."

"Your ridicule is my newly found function," replied the old man wryly. "Names," he continued, "are useless ... you might as well call me Bob."

The old man shuttered and thought, "what was I thinking!"

"Bob!" shouted Rishi. "That's perfect!"

"You can't call me Bob. I forbid it!"

"What ever you say, goes Bob," replied Rishi, "I am your servant."

The Old Man put his right hand on his forehead and wondered, "how could I let my birth name slip out like that?"

Then a feeling of knowing came over him. He brought up his beloved coconuts of future possibilities and noticed that the number of outcomes had increased by several orders of magnitude since yesterday.

"I see," said the old man, "you have found the qualities of your talent. You helped loosen my tongue."

"Yes." Said Rishi. "Its exactly as you said, right before my eyes the whole time, I have a track into people's minds through my own will."

"You understand..." said the old man before Rishi interrupted him.

"I know. I know. I must be careful how I use my talent."

"Very careful. Need I remind you that it was my talent that enabled us to both survive the trial of your fears and it was only because I faced my own fear that my talent could save us at all."

"Yeah, I know. I promise to be careful. Its not like we meet people up here anyway. What have we seen, like maybe a dozen of your worldly students in the two years since I arrived?"

Rishi laid back on his dusty old sleeping bag and surveyed the cave. It was cool, dank and stank. He absolutely adored the smell of it. It was home to him. He could just make out the entrance in the distance with its trickle of light flowing down to Bob and him.

"Ha!" he thought to himself. "The old man is Bob."

Bob stood up and headed toward the cave entrance. "I'm going down to find out where our suppliers are. Are you going to search for the 1000 meter cave?"

"That's what I do every day Bob."

Bob growled and said, "I'll stop you from prying my mind in the future. You know I can."

"Yes," said Rishi, "but I'll get satisfaction every time I say, 'hi Bob!'".

Rishi rolled off his sleeping back, picked it up and followed Bob to the cave entrance.

"You could tell me your last name," said Rishi, "I'll call you by that if you like."

"You'll get no more information from me!" shouted Bob.

Rishi laughed as they hit the cave entrance. In a few seconds he squinted out into the morning sunlight and stepped around the old man.

He shook out his sleeping bag, trying his best to eliminate any dry soil that had gathered from the cave floor. Then he rolled it up and carried it back into the cave.

There hadn't been any food for a few days so Rishi and 'Bob' were fasting. Bob called back to Rishi and said, "I'll be back this evening with food, if I'm not you best fend for yourself, okay?"

"Got cha Bob," replied Rishi.

Rishi traveled past Bob's animal skins and back in the cave toward the watering hole. When he got there he noticed it was nearly empty. It had been a dry and cold winter. Water, the Rishi knew, was not an issue. Where he was going there would be lots of water, too much in fact for him to get past to make it to the 1000 meter cave.

Every day he mapped out new pathways in the cavern complex. He knew more about these caves than anyone had ever known but he still could not find a safe way to the 1000 meter cave. He had climbed up the slide and retraced his steps to the top of the cave, looked down into it and wondered if he should get a rope. But there at the top of the cave he saw a grand opening in its western wall. He knew there had to be a way to get to that cave, but as of yet he'd not been able to find it.

He hiked up and down the caves and then squeezed through a tiny opening into a small chamber with several large stalactites. There were no stalagmites because water flowed through here for thousands of years, preventing their formation. Rishi jumped up and grabbed a ledge in the top of the chamber. He couldn't see where he was but he knew the cave so well that he didn't need to.

His eyes continued to adjust and he began to see the green glowing algae as he pulled himself, snakelike, along the floor of this narrow passage way.

"Into the chamber of possibilities," he thought, "a physical representation of what Bob sees in his head when he closes his eyes."

A memory surfaced. "Why won't you tell me the way to the 1000 meter cave?" Rishi heard himself ask. Bob replied, "Because you must find it on your own and it'll help keep you busy."

"But you can see the route?"

"Yes, several routes, one of which you know, but of course that way is certain death if you should try to enter. In late summer when the water is calm, it is not deep enough for you to jump in from the top of the cave and in the winter when the water is deep enough you will get swept downward in the caves and drown to death."

"I'm not very fond of water as it is," though Rishi once the memory dissipated.

Rishi sat in the chamber of possibilities, closed his eyes and tried to meditate.

Death of a Rishi

2008-05-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

Rishi, wide awake, sat up on the two meter horizontal amethyst crystal.

"I think its going to be a few hours before the sun rises," he thought to himself. "I guess I might as well try to meditate again."

When Rishi said, "try to meditate," he was echoing his first spiritual teacher's words. UncEgg had said, "kiddo we don't know how to meditate and we haven't for millennia. There are those who do but they are few and far between. The odds of meeting such a person are insurmountable. So I sit and I try to meditate. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea what the goal is. So I read books, I control my breath and I watch my thoughts dancing before me like sparkles of the rising sun on the ocean's surface."

In reply, the young Jon Rishi asked his UncEgg, "Does anything happen when you try?"

"Nothing ever happens Jon," replied UncEgg, "Its always the same and I know I'm doing something wrong but I don't know how to fix it."

UncEgg had died of a heart attack not long after this conversation.

Rishi reflected on his Uncle and thought, "That dude smoked too many cigarettes, drank too much and enjoyed greasy food way too often."

Another part of his mind said, "Yeah, but he sure was a cool unhealthy old dude."

"Yeah," Rishi agreed.

He closed his eyes in the pitch blackness, folded his ungainly legs and fidgeted trying to find something to grasp onto within himself.

Was there a thought, some sound or imagery on which to hold? How could he meditate? What was meditation?

These thoughts bounced around in his head for a few minutes before he got tired of them and banished them.

Then it happened. Or more approximately, it didn't happen.

For a brief moment Rishi felt absolutely nothing. No thoughts. No feelings. Just a sense of existence stretching backward and forward in time forever.

Rishi took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and lost himself totally.

A rumbling in the cave stirred him from this experience.

The sun had risen, the crystals in which he sat were well lit and it took a full minute for his eyes to adjust before he could open them fully.

The floor of his geode shook and he knew that more settling of the rock was happening beneath him. At this moment he realized fully that he may never leave this mountain again, that he may lose his life among this crystal. For some reason, he didn't care.

I go willingly. I follow in Master UncEgg's footsteps.

Inside himself he felt a pull and stood up. He gingerly ran across the floor of the geode, up its eastern face, and climbed up to the dark opening. As he climbed through the dark opening, the massive geode broke away from the wall to which it had been attached and fell. Rishi held on to the inside of the cave and pulled his feet out of the geode's opening.

He looked back and watched the 15 meter geode fall a thousand meters and splash into the lake floor of a huge cavern. The walls had many crystals and much stone. Somehow Rishi knew that there would be no more collapsing this year. This new giant chamber had been made for him and the light that streamed in through the quartz guide at the top would light the chamber for thousands of years.

Rishi struggled and pulled himself into the cave opening before the adrenalin wore off, then turned back and looked into the massive chamber.

He saw three colors of quartz: Rose, Amethyst, and of course clear, but he also saw stones of different geometry and quality. Hopefully, later he would be able to return and explore the chamber.

Looking into the darkness of the cave before him, Rishi crawled forward. The tunnel was narrow and short, perhaps a meter by a meter and bent this way and that.

"Once again," thought Rishi, "I must go forward and not back."

After ten minutes of crawling, even with eyes adjusted, Rishi could not see where he was going. There was algae on the floor of this tunnel but he could not see its glow.

Perhaps if he sat for a while, his eyes would adjust further as they had in the old chamber that had been his home for a short time.

As he sat and pondered what to do he remembered his flash light. He wondered how long the batteries would last if he used it. He came to the conclusion he should save it for later. Only in dire need should he use the flash light.

An idea struck him. "I wonder," he said out loud. Gingerly he touched his finger tip to some of the algae on the ceiling and then touched the tip of his tongue to his finger.

After forty seconds he could see the glow of the algae.

"I'm seeing the glow of the life in that algae," he thought to himself as he began to crawl forward in the cave. The algae was like some self fulfilling prophecy.

This tunnel took many turns and had many forks. Some went left and right, some went up and down. Each time a gentle pull in his gut told him which way to go. He paid attention to the pull and noted that it always took him in the direction of the most algae.

He began to rely on that fact and stopped paying attention to the pull.

At one particular intersection he saw many algae to his left and struck out for it. After a meter or so of crawling he fell through an opening in the floor, landing two meters down on hard rock he struck his left shoulder and head quite brutally.

The pull had said, "Not this way," but because his mind had become attached to the way of "the most algae" he had not heard it.

Presently he climbed up the wall of the pit through the hole and back tracked to his wrong turn.

There he closed his eyes and paid attention.

"To the right," it said, "not the left."

So he turned right and followed the pull within him.

As he turned a right corner the tunnel became very smooth and he noticed a vertical shaft above him that seemed to stretch on forever. Before him lay a steeply angled tunnel, with a smooth algae laden floor. He recognized its type immediately. It was like the cavern that started this adventure: a one way trip. It was yet another way that lead forward with no possibility of going back.

He pondered for a moment then turned around in the tunnel, put his feet down the tube and followed the pull forward.

He slid around and around, down and down for a full minute, and ended with a splash in a pool of water in a delicate chamber that smelled of humanity.

"Be careful in that water," said the old man from some unknown direction, "its our drinking water. You best get out of if as soon as possible."

Rishi almost cried at the recognition of the old man's voice but instead staid the feelings and forced thankfulness into his heart.

"Am I out?" Rishi asked as he swam toward the voiced shadow at the shore of the pond.

"Yes," replied the old man, "and assuming the plumbing hasn't changed too much, our cave life will be much as it has been for our teachers and our teacher's teachers."

"Nothing's changed up here?"

"Nothing," replied the old man. "Did much change down below?"

"Everything," said Rishi.

"Did you see the crystal cave?"

"Oh yes, but its gone replaced by a massive chamber the likes of which..."

"Don't tell me Rishi," interrupted the old man, "you can show me after we rest and heal."

"We won't be able to get back up there," said Rishi as he stood up.

"I know, but that's not where we want to go anyway," replied the old man.

As they walked back through the dark caverns Rishi asked, "How did you survive old man?"

"I was grasping the rock for my life when I waved to you the first time. Once I climbed upon the rock and waved again the roof collapsed above the swirling pond."

"I saw that. It looked as if it crushed you."

"It didn't. It fell around me. In my mind I saw a single possibility for survival, but it was crystal clear and I followed it. I knew where every foot fall needed to be. I have never been that one pointed in my life. It was amazing!"

"How did you get back up here?"

"After the collapse and the subsequent restructuring of the cave there was a large opening to the cavern we came in through."

"You just walked out?"

"Yeah, once I got to a safe portion of the cave, just under where you found your necklace, I found an opening into familiar caverns."

"Lucky."

"Ha Ha!" Shouted the old man. "You don't really believe in luck after this adventure, do you?"

Rishi stopped and the old man turned. Rishi saw the old man's body glowing with a powerful aura. "Are we still alive?" Rishi asked.

"You and I died in this cave today and yesterday and yet we live."

"What does that mean?"

"Difficult to say."

Rishi and the old man walked in silence to the old man's home. They sat and ate some fruit brought by the old man's students.

It had been a long time since Rishi slept peacefully.

Crystal Illumination

2008-05-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Rishi had laid on his back for about five minutes. It seemed only a heartbeat in time for him. The rumbling of the chamber had stopped and all the water in the cave had drained into chambers below. He just barely sensed that the ledge on which he lay stood fully ten meters above the bottom of the cave. There was no going back. Was there a way forward?

He finally stirred and rolled toward the rift against the wall of the chamber. He put his hand into it and felt cool water.

"How could there still be water in there?"

His geologist mind drew blank after blank after blank.

But then, perhaps he should be thankful, the vein of glass on which he perched might have a thirty foot drop on both sides and that water might be the only thing preventing him from falling to his death.

"I really can't wait. I really mustn't." He thought to himself.

He looked at the cavern, his home for the past few days, and noticed how very little of the green glowing algae remained. Much of it had been spirited away by the nearly invisible effects of the water pouring through the cave.

Rishi listened to the river flowing down from the ceiling of the Chamber. It was fast, but not so fast as to sound terrible. "The water must have lain across the ceiling of this chamber for eons, and today the roof decided to give way. Today it decided to take my life and the life of my new friend. It only half succeeded."

"I really can't wait. Any wait is taking a chance of further collapse."

The fear of death weighed over him. It was as if the Angel herself floated above him, tempting him to do something rash. Yet She also temped him to do nothing, because She knew nothing was as rash as something.

Rishi put his hand in the water again and felt the wall of the crevasse he needed to sink into. It was smooth and oddly angular, feeling along it he formed a mental image of its structure. Then it dawned on him, "I'm sitting on the side of a massive quartz crystal!"

Leaning his face over the water Rishi saw a distant glow.

"That is what the old man meant when he told me I'd know where to go, there's light at the end of this tunnel."

"How could there be light this deep in the cave? The light looks white, but honestly in this much darkness how could I be sure that the faint light I'm seeing is white. It could be the glow of green algae."

Beneath him, much deeper in the bowels of this mountain, came a rumbling as more eroded stone collapsed under its own weight and the weight of the melt water.

"No time for thinking," said Rishi outloud, and he plunged head first into the water.

Righting himself he looked down the dark water filled passage way, put his head above the water, took a deep breath and swam as fast as he could for the blurry light ahead of him.

As he swam he kept floating to the top of the passage way, scraping his back on the sharp points of large quartz crystals. This spurred him downward as well as forward toward the light.

He exhaled his breath slowly over time as he swam down the 45 degree decline toward the light. As he approached the light source he was nearly out of breath.

The light streamed in through a small opening in the surface of the crystal passage way. Even though the passage way continued on a down angle, Rishi squeezed through the opening toward the source of light. He ran completely out of breath. He allowed his buoyancy to lift him upward toward the light as his lungs ached to take a breath. They burned and pleaded, trying to inhale oxygen, but he forced them to obey to his will, to take a breath now meant death, to wait perhaps another minute meant life.

The light grew brighter and brighter as he floated upward. He kicked a little to gain speed. It seemed to take an interminable amount of time.

As he approached the surface of the water, the light was blinding and he had to close his eyes. He took a deep breath and tried to open his eyes. He could not, his eyes were not prepared for the light of day.

His mind pondered the light. Had he just come into a chasm in the mountain? Was the light the light of the sun or was there some other trick the mountain was playing.

Feeling around the edges of the shaft he and just floated through he found more quartz crystal. He felt large hexagonal structures. It seemed too dangerous to climb out before he opened his eyes. As a geologist he knew there could be very sharp tiny crystals that might slice him to ribbons as he attempted to lift himself out of the water.

He relaxed in the pool and waited.

He felt the distant rumbling of crashing rock and decided he'd better pull himself out anyway. Feeling around he felt a horizontal patch of large crystal. It was laying on its side so he pulled himself upon it.

Just as he slid onto the glass he felt the water leave his feet. The tunnel beneath him had just drained and now there was a 20 or 30 meter drop behind him. He would only be able to move forward from here.

"The cave seems to like that theme," Rishi thought, "Always forward, never back."

Laying on his back, Rishi began to slowly open his eyes. The light was blinding but he felt sure he was safe in opening them.

He lay on the inside of a giant quartz geode. It was 14 meters in diameter. The top was fractured in two places, in the top most fracture light poured in from above. The other fracture, along the east side, was dark.

"Perhaps the lit fracture is the exit", he thought, "but how am I to get there. Perhaps this whole room was water filled when the old man's teacher entered it."

Rishi sat up and surveyed his surroundings. Most of the room was white quartz, but a small block of it, which he happened to be laying upon, was amethyst. It was stunning.

For a moment Rishi wondered if he should be rushing along, after all it was possible these geodes would be the next to collapse.

Rishi laid back down and drifted to sleep. Apparently the adrenalin had worn off.

He awoke several hour later in total darkness.

Remembering where he was and his previous day's adventures he mused, "clearly that is sun light. Now I must wait for dawn before I can try to climb out of this wonderful structure."

Many Lives in One Cave

2008-05-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

"Wait a minute," said Rishi. "What are you implying here?"

The old man climbed down to another level of rock, slipped and splashed into shallow water. He looked up at Rishi and replied, "You always come back here to face this fear, and you always die here."

"That doesn't make sense," said Rishi.

"It makes perfect sense," contradicted the old man.

Rishi retorted, "You're saying this fear comes from past lives?"

"Yes," replied the old man, "you better climb down and be prepared to get wet. We need to get moving. Do you hear that water behind us?"

"That's not important," said Rishi. "I want to understand this reincarnation implication."

The old man gently slid off the rock on which he stood, into the water, and said "The water is deep here, we must swim."

"This is ridiculous!" cried Rishi as he climbed down to the water level.

"Honestly," said the old man after he turned to face Rishi, "what you did before doesn't matter. Past lives, how ever pertinent, really don't mean anything."

Rishi slid into the water and began to dog paddle. He paddled out to the old man and said, "I don't believe in reincarnation."

"I don't either," said the old man. Then he turned and swam as fast as he could for the north wall of the cave, the wall where he knew he could find the way out.

Rishi saw the old man swimming fast and strong and mimicked the old man's movements, he swam confidently after the old man and found a healthy rhythm quite quickly.

The old man lifted himself onto another island of rock: this one glowed so brightly as to almost appear on fire. Rishi swam to the old man and said, "Then why would you say that was my past life?"

"Partly because its true," replied the old man, "and partly because I had foreseen these events and knew that this was the easiest way to assist you with your first swim."

Rishi pulled himself out of the water with a great perplexed expression on his face. He and the old man needed to cover about 35 meters to get to the north wall of the chamber.

As the confusion on Rishi's face began to wane, the old man said, "We must face all our fears to graduate from this place and you only have one fear left. It was given to you when you became master of this cave thousands of years ago and in a freak accident became trapped down here. You put that crystal in the wall over there, shouted up to your students that you were going to try to find a way out and were never heard from again."

The old man kept carefully ahead of Rishi. As Rishi followed making sure he could hear and ask questions, the old man lead him to another wet sink hole.

The old man climbed into the water as Rishi said, "so that was the skull of the Master of the cave?"

"Oh no," said the old man as he tread water, "that was the skull of a student of my teacher's teacher." In that life, your fear overcame you and you fell to your death.

The old man twirled around in the water and swam quickly away from Rishi covering ten meters before Rishi had even formed his next question. Rishi put his finger to his mouth as if to speak. Seeing the distance between himself and the old man, Rishi slid into the water and swam after him.

The distance across this pond was vast. The old man swam about 30 meters and pulled himself out of the water onto a smooth, solid, almost glass like ledge in north wall of the cave. He could just make out the gap at the base of the wall.

In fact the distance was so vast that the old man realized he had made a mistake in swimming that far.

In the distance, to the south, the sound of rushing water became overwhelmed by the sound of falling rock. Some of the roof was giving way under the weight of the water pressing down on it.

Rishi had stopped swimming and unconsciously doggy paddled while staring at the north wall of the cave.

"What is your question!" shouted the old man.

Rishi had suddenly understood why the old man had started this conversation and from that realization his fear surfaced. The old man's shout awakened Rishi and Rishi moved slightly forward in the water.

"I ... " stammered Rishi " ... I can't remember."

"Just swim toward my voice Rishi, just swim."

Rishi did as he was instructed for a minute, making a few meters distance but it became harder and harder for him to concentrate.

"There is nothing to fear here Rishi," said the old man.

"I wish I knew that," thought Rishi.

The old man lowered himself gently into the water and very slowly and carefully tread out to Rishi.

"Give me your hand Rishi," said the old man.

Rishi held up his hand, the old man grabbed it and towed him carefully to the smooth stone.

With the old man's help, Rishi started to pull himself out of the water.

At that moment a large piece of the roof, perhaps the size of a circus tent, broke away from the center of the Chamber's ceiling and fell with a large crash onto the green island and into the pond they were in.

Rishi pulled himself up the rest of the way as a wave of water from the the falling rock struck him and drove him against the north wall, he struggled to not fall in the water filled crack and then struggled to keep from being drawn back into the pond as the wave bounced off the north wall.

"Rishi." said the old man.

Rishi whipped around and saw a giant whirlpool of water where the pond had been. The old man circled around and around, faster and faster.

Rishi started to move for the water when he noticed that the green island in the middle of the pond was gone and apparently a collapse of the floor had created an opening, a way for the water to escape the chamber.

"Stop!" shouted the old man.

Rishi stopped at the edge of the smooth stone and noticed that the water had drained down several feet from its edge.

"You must face your fear!" shouted the old man as he drew closer and then circled farther away.

"That is all that matters now!" shouted the old man on his next pass.

"Swim!" shouted Rishi. "Swim toward the middle and sling shot out!"

The old man shrugged. "Okay" he shouted above the noise of the water, "I'll try."

The old man began swimming toward the middle. It had the affect of accelerating him tangentially toward the middle. As he approached the center he flipped out of the whirlpool and got very close to Rishi. They reached for each other and the old man smiled as if to say "thank you."

But their arms missed and the old man was carried around to the new southern shore of this gyro-pond. The old man crashed into a rock. The pain was excruciating but the old man managed to heave himself out of the water onto the stone. Rishi stared at the old man for a moment and the old man waved to him.

At that moment another large portion of the ceiling collapsed and fell into the swirling pond. The water had drained several feet but it was still everything Rishi could do to hang on and not be drawn into the water by the wave created by the collapse. It was a miracle that nothing fell on him.

"The old man was not so lucky," thought Rishi.

Between a Rock and a River

2008-05-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

Rishi slid down on the cold moist stone to the water's edge and touched its surface. Then he pressed his finger to the stone just a few millimeters under its surface. "Too bad its not this deep the whole way along," he said to the old man.

"Agreed," replied the old man.

"We should go now," said Rishi succumbing to a momentary brashness. "Lets get it over with."

"Wait a moment," said the old man, "I know some things about what we're trying to do."

In the pervading darkness all Rishi could make out of the old man was his outline against the green glowing algae. As the old man sat on the slippery floor he effused an air of power and certainty. This made Rishi feel more confident about the outcome of his adventure.

The old man began searching the possibilities, to refresh his mind of ideas on where to go and what to do. He noted that because of his presence in the chamber, the likelihood of deadly accident had greatly decreased for Rishi, but increased considerably for himself.

"Coconuts," he thought as he flipped them around, opening them and examining their fruit.

"Where's my pack?" Asked Rishi.

"Its up in that cave: hopefully we'll be able to dig it out. It doesn't matter though until we get out of here. Please give me a moment to continue my research."

Rishi didn't understand what the old man did while in his head but he did understand that the old man seemed to have some insight so he respected the old man's wishes.

After a few more minutes the old man said, "Listen, I'm only going to say this once: if something happens to me, you are to get out of here. I've lived a long time and now that you wear that necklace around your neck my job is done."

The old man listened to himself, laughing at his lies. "Its true in one sense," he thought, "but false in so many ways."

The old man continued to listen to himself. "Ahead of us about 100 meters, just at the edge of the wall we can just barely make out, there is a trench. The trench is only a third of a meter thick but it stretches almost the length of the cave.

"That drop off is our goal. We must move into that sink hole right up against the wall. There are other sinks before that one which if we enter, we must swim past, to enter any of those sinks is certain death as they only travel down into numerous deep and sealed caverns below us.

"My teacher said that when he was in here, there was no pond, except that which was at the edge of this cave in the trench that I mentioned earlier. That meant that at one time the caverns under us were open and had drained the water from this chamber. My teacher fell into a pit climbing across the chamber but managed to climb out and make his way out. My teacher knew to swim the water because of what he saw there."

"I have to enter water through a narrow opening?" asked Rishi.

"Yes, as do I, it is the only way out."

At that moment each man heard a rumbling from the blocked entrance behind them, the old man scrambled toward the right side of the cave near Rishi and they both watched as rock tumbled down the opening. Then a fairly large stream of water began flowing out of the wall. It started as a small trickle and quickly gained power.

More rumbling eschewed from the cave entrance and the water picked up pace again.

"We have to go now Rishi," said the old man.

The men made their way along the cave, carefully looking for the warning sign of a massive drop off in the stone. They paid attention to the green glow of the algae, looking for it to disappear under them. It wasn't long before they found what they were looking for.

They stood at the top of a large cliff of crumpled rock for which there was no way around.

"It looks like we're going to have to swim in deep water from here," said the old man. "Just don't panic and remember you body floats, kick like your sister taught you and where possible keep your head above water. Above all, BE CALM."

Rishi nodded and felt his heart in his throat. There was a tension in his back, shoulders and a tightness in his stomach that reminded him of something just out of his awareness.

The old man lowered himself into the water and stood up. "Its not very deep, just a meter or so, lower yourself down."

The river flowing into the cave brought a few more boulders with it. These were much larger and seemed almost too big to fit through the opening that the old man had passed through. The old man noted their outline and thought, "what have I done?"

Rishi and the old man waded a few more meters and climbed onto a taller rock. Then continued feeling their way along warning each other of perils.

The rock underfoot became quite varied in size and features. "This is probably rock from the ceiling," said the geologist part of Rishi.

"Oh my!" exclaimed the old man, "look!"

Before the old man was a large cliff of broken stone, perhaps ten meters high covered with algae.

The old man continued, "I had no idea this was here. I thought perhaps we'd gotten to the sink more quickly than estimated. How are we going to get around this?"

"We're not said Rishi, we have to climb over."

They each made there way out of the water using the broken stones as hand and foot holds. It took several minutes to climb to the top. From this vantage they could see all the glowing algae of the chamber.

"That is where we're going," said the old man, pointing toward the far end of the cave.

From here they could see the disturbance of the water caused by the river of debris flowing into the chamber.

The pile on which they walked came to an end as quickly as it began so Rishi and the old man climbed down. They proceeded slowly and methodically, making sure each foot and hand had some place to go to insure they didn't fall. They had no way to know how far down they would fall if they failed to cling to the rock. The algae's light made distances very difficult to calculate.

Rishi felt around looking for a hand hold and felt something smooth and round with two holes and squared ridges along one side. After a moment he realized what it was and let out a little shriek.

"Oh," said the old man, "that's your body, don't be so shocked. You wore it a very long time ago."

Whoops on purpose

2008-05-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Rishi sat along the edge of the higher portion of the chamber, watching a small stream glinting slightly in the eerie green light of the cave's algae.

The old man had said, "Be quiet and let me work this out!" a long time ago and Rishi had not dared to ask about further progress.

The old man sat in the stream of water. The cold flowed across him and helped his focus on the array of bananas. He had spent the better part of an hour examining the possibilities. Always he kept his teacher's warning in the forefront of his mind.

"Once you find your talent," said the old man's teacher, "know that it is foolish to attempt to master every possible future. You merely need to master the moment and the future will take care of itself."

He had pushed aside many shades of yellow and umber, but still wondered at the best hue to choose. Blue for safety, violet for growth and knowledge.

Rishi sighed and the old man heard it. The old man was a little bothered but compassion welled up in his heart and he said, "Tell me Rishi, which color: blue, green, red, or purple?"

Rishi sat up a bit straighter and said, "purple! That's the color of the fire in the stone!"

The old man smiled and chuckled. "Yes in deed," he thought, "that was very obvious."

The old man broke off a banana from the bunch and offered it to the Goddess of knowledge. "OM AIM" he said as he opened it. "OM AIM" he said just before he took a bite and "OM AIM" he said after he swallowed. He closed his eyes, watched the green hued bananas disappear.

The old man focused on the task. The banana tasted better than anything he'd eaten in more than four decades and fighting the desire to desire more, he forced himself to take another bite, repeated the mantra "OM AIM" and watched as the red bananas disappeared.

He repeated this process another time, using the last bit of banana to eliminate the green hued possibilities.

All that remained were purple hued possibilities, about 400 million of them.

"Is there a way," asked the old man to himself, "to insure that he faces his fear and increase his likelihood of success? That would be a balanced outcome."

Shifting the bananas this way and that he caught a glimpse of a gold banana.

"What was that?" he thought.

He twisted his view around and around, caught sight of it a few times and then zoomed in on it. When his consciousness touched it, he realized that it was the solution he sought. The Goddess had turned this banana gold because it was the ideal action for this moment.

"Yes!" he said out loud. He opened another banana and ate it slowly and methodically. Before each bite he said, "OM AIM" to show his devotion to the Goddess of knowledge. After he finished the last bite he shouted, "Manifest Manifest Manifest!"

The rock outcropping immediately behind him, from which the water flowed, caved in, smashing hard into his back and thrusting him forward into the slide of rock. He had just enough time to lay back as he passed through the narrow opening.

In a matter of seconds he was laying beside the small pond with Rishi squinting at him. Even though the old man couldn't see it, he knew Rishi's face expressed utter astonishment.

The old man's back hurt. Perhaps he bleed, but at least he did not have any broken bones.

They both listened as the sound of crashing rock rumbled down to them through the cavern.

The rumbling above them stopped and a few small rocks and stones tumbled and slid down coming to rest just behind the old man.

The old man sat up and said, "Perhaps I should have examined the fruit of that golden banana before I removed all other possibilities."

Rishi did not understand but asked, "I thought you were afraid."

"Oh don't be confused. I don't wish to be here."

Rishi asked, "I thought you said you wouldn't come down here."

"That is true, partly because of my fear and partly because this cave is sacred. It held that stone for one who would need it for so long and we are not allowed to go in here. But, obviously that does not hold true any more. That tradition ended today."

Rishi paused, changed the subject and asked, "Are you hurt?"

"I may have some cuts and bruises on my back, but I think I'm relatively unharmed, considering how much I could have been hurt by the cave in."

"Why did it happen exactly after you said, 'manifest, manifest, manifest?'"

"That isn't important. What is important is that we are both caught in a cave that is likely to flood sooner or later. Although the cave in may spare us from torrents for a while, while the upper caves fill, sooner or later that rock debris will spirit through here taking everything with it."

The old man closed his eyes and requested the possibilities. After a slight pause, while he relaxed and allowed the adrenalin to leave his system, an entire crop of coconuts appeared before his inner vision.

"Coconuts," he murmured.

Feeling the bananas still on his lap he picked up the three remaining, said, "here have some lunch, I won't be able to use these any more" and tossed them to Rishi.

Rishi ate them and laid the peels next to him while the old man sat very still.

"He seems to search himself a lot," thought Rishi.

After a few minutes the old man faced Rishi and said, "I understand now. We are stuck in this cave, the only way out for now is forward. You and I must both swim the distance here if we wish to survive. We might have only a few days, there are too many external factors to be sure, but odds have it that if we leave right now, we will be doing the best we can. Every minute we wait we are decreasing our odds of survival."

"You understand I'm petrified of water," said Rishi.

"And I am petrified of caves," replied the old man. "Yes I know full well what you are feeling, you must rise above it: it is the only way we can survive."

Which Futures Shall I Destroy?

2008-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

The old man smiled at the bunch of bananas in his hand. They were starting to form brown spots but the meat was firm and whole. He would present the bananas to the Goddess of Creation first, but assuming she smiled upon him, soon he would be able to use his other, untested, talent.

He finally understood why he saw bananas when he visualized future possibilities, because Rishi would present him with bananas. Many devotees had visited the cave and none had ever brought bananas. At an altitude above twelve thousand feet and leagues away from the tropics, how could anyone ever bring bananas? So many times he had wished the fruits of his mind's eye were apples or pears. These fruits could be found anywhere in the valley below the old man's cave. The answer to why he saw bananas became self evident.

The old man closed his eyes, mostly for effect, clutched the bananas, and asked, "Mother show me the possibilities." Nearly an infinite number of banana fruits showed themselves to him. "Mother, please accept this gift from Rishi and I. We are fools to question your wisdom. We apologize for our ignorance and wish to receive your blessing of this fruit."

The infinite bananas before his mind's eye narrowed to a manageable number on the order of a billion.

"Oh thank you Goddess," exclaimed the old man, "Thank you for this opportunity to make a difference in this man's life!"

Rishi laid quietly while the water washing his back picked up pace. He waited for the old man's to say what should be done next, but his patience was growing thin.

The old man finally understood his teacher's words, "when you offer the fruits of destiny without devotion, you will not be able to make use of them."

It was a confusing phrase his teacher had said a hundred times and one the old man had never forgotten.

"Please show me the best way to help Rishi find himself." The old man asked. Then the bananas before his mind's eye changed from yellow to many colors of the rainbow.

The old man was shocked. They had always been yellow. Always a perfect representation of a banana. Now they looked like plastic alien fruit from another world.

The water flowing at the old man's feet was an inch deep now, it flowed from the ceiling, down the wall behind him and reminded him that time grew short.

"OH CRAP!" came a shout from Rishi.

"He has realized his predicament," thought the old man.

"Did the first spring melt happen today?" Rishi asked the old man. A large, well focused, intonation of fear sounded in his voice.

The old man opened his mouth and the bananas disappeared from his mind's eye. "No Rishi, it was yesterday and the water is just starting to get here. It is cold again so I don't expect a torrent but you should probably move to the side of the cave just to be sure."

"How does he know I'm laying in the flow?" thought Rishi.

The old man returned to his rainbow of bananas and recognized that the color coding represented the possible spiritual lessons that he and Rishi might experience should different routes be taken.

"By giving me these bananas," thought the old man, "he has given me the ability to prevent entire swaths of future. I can eliminate any karma, just by eating a banana. The question is: which futures shall I destroy?"

"I could eliminate his death, but that makes it much too likely that he'll just walk out and never return. I could remove the possibility that he not face his fear, but that restriction could make it so he never chooses again, always opting for where the wind blows him. I should not be the wind that tells him what to do because he may come to rely on me too much."

Flipping the bananas this way and that, the old man looked from every perspective he could imagine. He saw things from Rishi's point of view. Saw his life and his life's mistakes. The old man even noted how Rishi had more often failed himself and those who loved him and still managed to end up in this cave. Clearly the banana of this cave was strong in his life.

"Oh Mother," sang the old man out loud, "what do I do with the wisdom you give? Which direction do I go from here now that I notice I live?"

Rishi heard the old man's singing and said, "hello. I'm still down here."

"You haven't moved like I asked you to Rishi. Move so I might get another perspective!"

Rishi failed to understand the old man but rolled toward the dryer portion of the chamber as instructed.

"Ah," said the old man, "that's much better." After a long pause the old man said, "Rishi, if you climb up a bit of the wall there you will find a loose stone."

Rishi used the wall to hold himself and even though the algae was slippery he managed to stand up. Then groping around for a few minutes he said, "I don't feel it."

"You must climb higher."

Rishi climbed the wall the best he could. He got up about five feet and said, "Is this far enough?"

"You must climb about five more feet upward and five feet to your right."

Rishi did as the old man instructed.

Up and to his right Rishi found a loose stone.

"I got it!" he shouted up.

"Good," said the old man. "Pull it out and allow it to fall to the floor."

Rishi jiggled the rock and after a minute it fell to the floor with a thud and bounced all the way into the pond where it came to rest in about three inches of water.

"Okay. Done!" shouted Rishi.

"Inside that opening is a crystal with chain, grab it and put it around your neck."

"How did you know this was here?" asked Rishi.

"My teacher heard the story from his teacher who heard it from his teacher. It goes back thousands of years."

"Why didn't your teacher get it when he was in this chamber?"

"You ask good questions, Rishi," said the old man. "He did not know about it when he fell into the cavern, his teacher was in the valley getting supplies, and my teacher swam out before his teacher returned."

Rishi reached into the opening, felt around and finally had his hands on the necklace. He pulled it out and felt for the stone. It was large, hexagonal, and seemed to refract the light of the algae quite well.

"Is this quartz?" asked Rishi.

"So legend states," said the old man.

"So have you figured out how to get me out of here yet?"

Rishi carefully climbed down the wall and put the quartz crystal and its chain around his neck.

Then, slowly, his perception cleared and he yelled, "OH MY GOD! MY DREAM JUST CAME TRUE!" Pausing for a deep breath Rishi said, "I can't believe it. I forgot all about my dream. Beside the pond, within the wall, I was to find a crystal with a violet fire within it. And now I have!"

The old man thought, "Had he kept a calm mind he would have found the crystal on his own, still its nice to know the bananas are his backup."

Ten Thousand Bananas of Death

2008-05-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Rishi awoke. He had slept a very long time. He rolled onto his side and felt the wetness on his back.

"Oh damn," he thought, "I'm still stuck in this cave. Why did I come here? What was I thinking? Sheesh, I guess I wasn't thinking at all."

"I wonder how long I slept," he asked out loud.

"Almost two days," echoed the words of the old man down the tunnel.

"Two days!" Rishi shouted. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"Wake you? While your body adjusted to the altitude? I certainly wouldn't have done that."

"I'm really thirsty," said Rishi.

The pool in the room with you is completely safe to drink. Even though its a bit stagnant, the algae in it is safe.

Cupping his hands, Rishi scooped some water toward his mouth and drank. The water tasted wonderful and quenched his thirst beyond all expectations. It left a funny after taste though which Rishi marked without a second thought.

He rolled to his back and closed his eyes feeling elated with the drink of water. He opened his eyes and realized that he could see a bit of the cave ceiling. The algae glowed and the sensation of being able to see in almost total darkness enthralled him.

"I can see!"

The old man stood at the the top of the slide, the area where the water overflowed during the heaviest melt.

"Yes," said the old man, "The algae glows. That algae is in all of this cavern. It is digesting the limestone and it gives off some light. Many are not sensitive to that light you should consider yourself lucky."

"I probably won't need my flash light any more," called up Rishi. Changing the subject he asked, "you are at the top of my jail cell? How did you know I'd awakened?"

"You stopped snoring."

"So you came to say hello?"

"No. I came to make sure you were still alive. If you die in there then I have to haul out your body to protect my drinking water."

"But you hate the cave."

"Hate is a strong word," said the old man. "I fear the cave, its true, but I also know how to rise above that fear to accomplish what I need to accomplish."

"I need to learn that," replied Rishi. "You would have risked your own life just to pull my body out of here?"

"There are many reasons I would slide down to you, that is just the one that made me visit this portion of the cave this moment."

Rishi became quiet for a moment. Hunger pain twisted deep in his stomach but he felt it unimportant. As long as he had water he would be fine.

"Can you bring me my back pack?" Asked Rishi.

"It is here, shall I attempt to slide it down to you or should I just send your special shoes?"

The Rishi pondered out loud, "I wish I knew which was more likely to succeed."

The old man paused for a moment and then said, "There is a slightly higher chance for the larger pack to get stuck, but I doubt either choice will work for you. I believe you've chosen to face your fear."

Under normal circumstances, Rishi's impatience would override his awareness and he'd demand the old man to send the pack down immediately and to come with it.

But Rishi sensed a few things. First, the old man would not come down the slide unless he had to. Second, he hadn't thought of just having the old man send the shoes, and third he hadn't realized the pack could get irrevocably stuck inside the smallest portion of the slide.

"That pack has a lot of useful things in it. It might serve you better if I let you keep it," said Rishi.

"I would not know Rishi," said the old man. "But I doubt I need anything in it."

"At least," replied Rishi, "take the fruit out of the pack and keep it for yourself, then I think you should put the shoes in the thick plastic bag and slide them down to me alone. This way at least the pack will survive and if I lose the shoes that won't be a big deal. Plus I believe they will fit better through the narrow opening. In fact I'm not sure the pack would fit at all."

"Plastic bag?" pondered the old man. Then, as a reflex, he began sifting through the fruit of karma with his mind's eye. It was dark enough here that he didn't even need to close his physical eyes.

"There and There!" thought the old man to himself, "Bananas with the shoes in a plastic bag! Oh my glorious..."

The old man's thoughts trailed off.

Rishi interrupted the old man's realization. "You should eat the fruit right away, I'm not sure they will last much longer. They were green when I started but they may be brown by now."

The old man barely heard him. He was focused on the Ten Thousand Bananas of Death involving those damn golf shoes. "Why did Rishi bring his golf shoes with him?" Thought the old man.

"Are you going to grab the fruit? I'd really like you to have it," said Rishi.

Allowing himself to be disturbed from his activity the old man unzipped the back pack.

"Good!" Said Rishi as he heard the zipper sound from up the corridor.

The old man reached in and felt around. Then he felt something smooth, cool and long.

"Oh my God!" the old man declared, "you have brought me bananas!"

"Yes. You aren't allergic are you?"

The old man instinctively sat down in the trickle of spring water flowing under him and began to chuckle. The laughter began to build like a small snow ball rolling down the precipice of the mountain outside. After a minute he was laughing so hard he had stopped breathing. His stomach wrenched in pain. He almost passed out.

Rishi lay there confused feeling a small stream of water striking his back. He glanced up, looking over the pond at the glowing ragged wall of green a foot ball field away. There was a large black area in it. It looked like a shadowed sand pit in a large green runway.

"No algae there for some reason," thought Rishi.

When he could speak again the old man whispered, "for the love of God man, don't mention this again, I don't think I could stop myself from laughing to death. When people say God has a sense of humor I don't think they realize exactly what they are saying. Now I promise you: I know God has a powerful sense of humor."

Time and Time Again

2008-05-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

The old man heard the distant echo of a snort from the sleeping Rishi hundreds of feet below. Sound traveled well in this cave. He closed his eyes, focusing on his favorite activity. It was the activity his mind loved the most and the only activity which he allowed.

In his mind, he opened the peels of a thousand bananas and looked at the meat of the fruit of karma. He had performed this task so many times that it had become second nature. "Here I sit," he thought, "and here are my options."

Yesterday the old man had only three hundred and fifty thousand options. "Only 350 thousand, that's a miracle," he thought. That was the smallest number of options the old man would ever see: because in those possibilities, he saw 349 thousand yielded a stranger at his cave opening. He had believed this stranger to be his student. He had believed that the stranger would come to learn from him as he had once come to this cave to learn from his teacher. However, he realized now that he had projected that idea onto the 349 thousand options. He should have paid more attention to the meat of the bananas. "If I had," he thought, "I may have helped avert the current crisis in the cave."

He laughed to himself. "Crisis: what a stupid word," he thought. "As if there is anything to be done. As if there is anything wrong with the situation." He closed his eyes tighter for a moment to put away the fifty million or so possibility bananas he was examining for similarities and said his favorite mantra which had been taught to him by his first teacher, UncEgg. "Everything is perfect. Everything is perfect. Everything is perfect."

He chuckled to himself and thought how wonderful it is that no matter how many powerful spells learned, nor ability gained, the most powerful mental charm he has is the one given him by his Uncle during his precocious childhood.

"Okay Maa, please show them all to me again and let me pretend I can help Rishi."

A billion billion billion bananas appeared before his mind's eye and he began sorting out the unlikely possibilities. When he was done in a matter of moments he looked at the sorted and organized 16 million possibilities and saw that there were only three general outcomes: First and most likely, Rishi waited too long and drowned in the cave or was crushed against the crystal. Second, Rishi entered the water, became enveloped by his fear and drowned attempting to swim the length of the sink. Finally the third option, Rishi made it to the other side.

The number of bananas for the third option was orders of magnitude less than the number of fatal bananas.

His mind paused for a moment. "Why bananas? She always shows the possibilities as bananas. Why bananas?"

Turning his minds eye back to the possibilities he saw that nothing he did would help Rishi in any way. There were possibilities he had set aside where he tried to help but in every case he either ended up dead, trapped with Rishi or both. In many occurrences Rishi lost his pack by trying to have it lowered to him, in many cases it would become stuck. How could he explain that to Rishi? Perhaps there were two hundred thousand paths that got the pack or the special shoes to Rishi, but the old man knew that Rishi should not climb out the way he came in because if he did, the worst possible outcome would occur: he would live and never know his truest fate, never discover himself in the crystal pit. To survive and not face his fear was Rishi's surface desire, but the old man could not help that outcome. He had already chosen to not help with those paths and has therefore pushed those bananas aside.

Could he explain these things to Rishi? Surely Rishi would not understand. Despite his name and attitude, he was not realized.

Another snore echoed from the cavern and flustered the old man. "That man is a loud sleeper," he thought. "If he survives and stays he will have to sleep elsewhere. That banana is required."

He chuckled at himself.

Hydrophobia

2008-05-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

This fear came from deep within Rishi. This fear of water. It was so very dark in the cave, and the water so deadly quiet that Rishi's mind raced as he contemplated crawling into it.

He called up to the old man, "Surely there's another way out that doesn't involve me getting wet?"

After a long pause, the old man replied, "I don't know how to get out of the room, but the previous occupant, my friend and teacher, told me that he had to swim out of that cave."

The old man didn't want to tell Rishi what else he had been told. His teacher had said nearly thirty years before that the only way out of that wonderful room was through a submerged cave.

"How did this cave get to be like this?" thought Rishi. "I studied geology because of this cave, because of that dream, now I must use my skills to think my way out of here."

Rishi took a great deep breath and exhaled slowly. He allowed his mind to focus on the chamber. The floor was perfectly smooth and flat and covered with a slimy green algae which he'd been killing by the billions since he arrived in the cave. They would recover, he knew, but part of him wondered if they felt the tragedy of his mistake as well as he did.

Clearly the cave entrance where the old man sat was a crack in the rock, probably due to settling, but this portion of the cave was different. This portion looked etched out by water. Probably the water in the pool before him. "That's why its wet and that's why its smooth," he thought. Had he walked back that far to get here?

"Oh but then!" His mind raced. "This is an underground pathway for a river of fresh water for melted snow!" He had barely beat the grass and flower sprouts to this altitude when he climbed to this cave. The snow would be melting soon. The room would flood. Slowly at first and then quickly and with more violence than any river in the world. The size of the chamber bore testimony to that.

The cavern in which he rested was created by a large chunk of very hard stone blocking the water's progress, causing it to cut out this chamber before finding a way around the blockage.

Then he knew the horrible truth. The old man's pause when answering his previous question suddenly became explained and he shouted at the top of his lungs, "THIS IS A SINK HOLE I LIE BEFORE!"

With massive trepidation the old many replied, "Yes. You have to swim through the hole to come out the other side. You must swim under water for nearly five minutes. Although this is probably as low as the water gets so you may find air pockets in the water cavern before you."

"Listen," said Rishi, "I have this massive fear of water. I mean, I really hate it. I don't even know why. I've been afraid of it my entire life, since I was a baby. My mother tried to give me a bath and I freaked out. She could only give me sponge baths until I was old enough to take a shower. Showers are okay. Pools of water are not. There must be some way for you to help me."

"I will do my best," came the reply from the old man, "but your time to overcome this fear is greatly limited. Soon that cave will be a raging torrent of water."

"Why did he go down there?" The old man asked himself, "why not ask me how to explore the safer portions of the cave? Why do the young never follow the wise and old? Why do they always follow the unwise or worse, try to blaze new trails with reckless abandonment?"

Rishi turned onto his side and flicked on the flash light. He looked at the surface of the water, just a few feet away and knew that under it lay a slippery slope that lead to an entirely dark, water filled death trap.

Then an idea struck him.

"You could," he shouted, "slide my pack down to me and then I could put on my climbing shoes and walk out of here!"

"That's a good idea," said the old man. "Should I send just the shoes or try to slide the whole pack. Oh, but ... what happens if it gets stuck, it would be a bad idea for me to accompany it, I'm not certain these old lungs can hold their breath for five minutes while I swim."

"You wouldn't have to. I could pull you up the cave behind me on a rope."

"You need to understand something Rishi," said the old man. "I'm deathly afraid of caves."

"What! You have got to be kidding me!"

"That's why I came here, to face my fear and master it, but I have found that all I can do is exist with it, watch it, and keep it from stopping action. It is the only way I can function as a cave dweller."

Rishi felt defeated. Rolling on his back, he realized how tired he had grown.

"I have to sleep now," he called up to the old man. "Lets think about things and when I awake we can try to come up with a solution that will respect both our fears."

"Agreed," said the old man

"Sleep well," thought the old man, "you have a long day ahead of you."

A Bit of a Wash

2008-05-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Rishi pushed himself along the smooth floor of the narrow cave into the moister air below. His light showed a glimmer of something, far along the descending cave. He knew it was the pool he had dreamed.

Suddenly the moisture on the floor increased and he found it easier and easier to slide.

He had just enough time to think, "this is easy," when he realized that he wasn't able to stop himself from moving.

The floor of the cave had grown wider and his feet no longer touched the walls. He began to slide faster and faster down the cave. The very distant glimmer from his flash light approached much more quickly than he cared to admit.

He flipped onto his back hoping to grab the ceiling with his hands but it raced away from him. The corridor had opened into a room.

He did not want to get wet. He did not want to disturb the water. He tried to maneuver sideways, tried to make it to the edge, but he fell flat on his face.

The floor of the cave began to level off as he approached the pool of water. As he attempted to lift his head to see how close he was to the water, his face splashed into it and he stopped moving.

He pushed himself upward, grasping for breath. Terrified of water since birth, he had never allowed himself to be this close to any body of water no matter how small. Glasses to drink and showers to wash were all he tolerated.

He tried to stand on the wet floor and slipped again, this time falling hard one hand landing in the pool.

He rolled to the side, away from the pool and then used his little flash light to look around the chamber. He would not attempt to stand again.

The chamber was large. It was so large that he couldn't see the ceiling or the walls with his weak little light. Glancing toward the pool he could not see over it or where it went, he only noted that it too stretched left and right toward the impenetrable dark.

"Surely," he thought, "the old man drinks from here, surely he knows how to get out."

As if to answer him he heard the very distant voice of the old man. "I'm afraid you are on your own Rishi, I know better than to go in that room because the old man who lived here before warned me when I accepted his first lesson. I have never been in that room. I drink water elsewhere.

"You mean I'm stuck!" shouted Rishi.

"Oh no. There is a way out."

"I have rope!" Cried Rishi.

"I have checked, it is not long enough."

"You will come and help me?" Asked Rishi. His voice echoed around the chamber and he marked how large the chamber must be to create an echo of that delay.

"I cannot help you Rishi, you found your way to the goddess and she has shown you that you must always bow when you approach her. Her ways of teaching are quite slick, wouldn't you agree?"

The old man said that last sentence in English which showed his mastery of it. Perhaps it was his native language.

Rishi took a deep breath and thought, "There must be a way out of here."

He carefully attempted to crawl toward the left side of the cave along the still and lucid pool of water.

The humid air felt good in his lungs. The hard damp stone under his hands and knees felt comforting. As he crawled toward the edge he looked for the wall. It was many minutes before he found it. The pool met the wall here, there was no way around the pool to go forward.

It was at this point that Rishi's mind began to clear. "I must conserve my flash light."

He switched it off, placed it deep within his pant's pocket and felt along the wall trying to use it to climb up the slippery slope toward the opening he had entered.

As he crawled his hiking slacks became more and more coated with the slime rubbing off the surface of the stone. Why had he not put on his caving equipment? Why had he been so rash to explore?

He got a dozen meters or so when his slimed jeans stopped being an aid and slipped out from under him. He fell flat on his stomach and slid down the slope slowly coming to a rest a few feet from the pool of water.

He flicked on his flash light and could just make out the wall he had attempted to use to escape the chamber.

Then, back up on his hands and knees, he made his way toward the right wall. It was some ten minutes before he got there. This was indeed a large cavern. The pool of water filled the rest of the cave and he could not tell how large it was.

"I should at least have put on my cleats," he grumbled under his breath.

Switching off his flash light again, he tried again to use the wall to propel him toward the entrance he had fallen through.

The floor here was not so wet and he made good progress until he go to a point which was roughly thirty meters from the pool, there his hand slipped and he tumbled down coming to rest directly next to the pool, exactly where he had first crashed.

"This is so frustrating!" Thought Rishi.

New Myth for Peace

2008-05-08T12:42:00.001-07:00

Rishi approached the cave entrance and felt a tinge of trepidation. He had traveled a long way to come to this moment, many miles across land, many years through time, and many levels of consciousness.

Stepping through the mouth of the cave, he noticed a warm breeze blowing across his face. The air was damp and warm, not dry and cold as he had felt outside. There also was the smell of humanity, an unexpected sensation.

"Had someone else discovered the cave?" he wondered.

An old man, completely naked, walked up to him squinting his eyes slightly. "Come Come," he said in Arabic.

Rishi hesitated.

"Not Arabic," said the man in Farsi, "How about this?" he asked in Hindi.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Rishi in fluent Sanskrit, "I understood you, its just that I didn't expect anyone else to be here."

"Sumskrita!" The old man exclaimed. "That will make your lessons much easier," he said in English.

"Lessons?" said Rishi mimicking the old man as he followed him deeper into the dark cave.

"Yes. Lessons," said the old man in Sanskrit, "why else would you come to see me?"

"But I didn't know you'd be here. I've been dreaming of this cave since childhood and its taken my whole life to find it."

"Ah I see. What is your name young lad?"

"My name is Jon Rishi."

"And Rishi is how you see yourself?"

"Yes." Replied Rishi. "Yes it is."

"You are here to teach me?"

"Oh no," said Rishi, "I'm here to meditate to find a way to teach others what I know."

"Very well then, we serve the same purpose, we shall be ..." The old man's voice trailed off as they approached his small fire.

"Room mates," He concluded.

Rishi dropped the pack off his back and sat on it. It had been a long day. He uncoiled his sleeping bag and with very little hesitation fell asleep laying upon it.

When Rishi awoke, a few hours later, the old man snored from somewhere in the dark cave. Rishi didn't remember where he was at first, but slowly it dawned on him that he was in the cave of his dreams. Ironically he hadn't had any dreams during his first sleep in the cave of his dreams.

The old man snorted and stopped snoring. "You are awake," said the old man.

"Yes. What can I call you?"

"What does it matter? It is only you and I who live here."

Rishi grabbed a flash light from his bag, switched it on and proceeded farther into the cave. A smile flashed across the old man's face as he thought, "Why must we always explore?"

Almost as if he were answering the old man's thoughts, Rishi said, "I'm looking for the chamber I found in my dreams, the one with the crystals.

"Oh ho!" cried the old man, "You have good dreams. I do not know of such a chamber but should you find it I would like to meditate in it."

"The cave is exactly as in my dream," said Rishi as he walked deeper. His voice echoed his progress to the old man as the old man lay on his bed of animal skins.

Rishi smelled more moisture. The cave was warmer than the outside air. There was likely flowing water in here. He came to the conclusion that this water kept the old man alive.

Turning left at the first fork he encountered, Rishi noticed the well worn look of the floor, as if water had flowed across it for Milena. He noted the striking difference between the smooth floor and the jagged ceiling.

The rock itself was totally unremarkable, but the room Rishi sought was not. The passage he walked narrowed exactly as he remembered and he knew he walked the right way. He turned right at a tee and peered at the slope before him.

The ceiling approached the floor and he crawled through a narrow opening leading to a steep down turn of the passage. This was a bit different from his dream. Even though it was small in the dream, he didn't remember having to struggle to move through it.

"There will be a pool at the bottom of this," Rishi thought to himself.