A.W. Cross - The Gardener of Man

As we left the tunnel and stepped again into the open sky, I saw by the doorway a feather, golden as the stars. Now what bird do you know of that has golden feathers? I dont know of any. I took that feather as sign from my grandmother, Omega. Do you remember her story? She had stars for eyes and feathers made from the memories of her people. I braided it into my hair. Although my people will never get to see the stars, I can still carry their memory with me, wherever we might go. I will remember for us all.

Cindra, Letter to Omega

Id wanted to bury my father with Ros and Adrian. It seemed right for him to have another son and daughter to watch over. But with the mob outside the compound, it hadnt been possible. Instead, wed buried him a few miles away at the top of hill to stand sentry over the windswept fields hed once loved. Fane carried the coffin himself; hed made it with Pax, the edges uneven and hastily put together, but strong and beautiful nonetheless.

Wed taken everything wed been able to carry, piled onto a series of travois we dragged behind us. We were heading to the coast, toward Tors uninhabited islands. I had to believe he would still go there, even after my death.

Hed broken his promise not to return to the compound. As Umbra finally lost control of what was left of Callum, shed collapsed, lifeless, onto the ground next to me, Tor had gathered up my broken body and carried it back to the others, to where Pax and Cindra were waiting. Theyd tried to speak to him, to explain there was still a chance, but in his grief, he wouldnt listen. Hed left, and this time, true to his word, he would not come back.

Every day, I scanned the horizon for him. We couldnt be that far behind, only a few days. He was still alive, his thread a muted gold. He was in mourning, and I ached to let him know it was a lie. It would change him forever, my death. I tried to give him some indication I was still there, but the distance between us was too great. Tomorrow, I would try again, and the day after that, until I found him.

I hoped he would recognize me when we finally met again. Eire looked so different from me, her body taller, stronger, her skin darker, and her eyes the green of an emerald sea. It would take me some time to get used to it; I kept bumping into things, much to Olivers amusement.

Do you miss your old body? Fane had asked as Id rifled through the clothing still neatly folded in the dresser in what wouldve been Eires room.

Yes and no. Ive changed, so it seems fitting. Many things will be easier to leave behind. At the same time, Ill miss her. That body carried my scars, you know? My proof that I existed.

Hed nodded. I understand.

Do you miss it? My old body?

Hed considered me in that thoughtful way of his. Yes and no. Id gotten very used to the idea of her. I didnt know you long enough to wish you were different. But Im just glad youre still here. Ill get used to this new you.

The others found it disconcerting.

It wasnt just the way I looked; I had Eires abilities now as well as my own. Id expected to lose the threads when Fane transferred my consciousness into her, but they were still there, a mystery. Now I could travel not only down them and into the others, but I could see the past as well, spreading out like the roots of a great tree. The ghosts of Eire and Ella still lived far inside me, their loving whispers a soothing echo.

Lily, Ryan, Grace, and Stella had come with us. I couldnt blame them. It was better to face the unknown than the tinderbox wed left behind. Grace had been quiet ever since wed left, silent with shock. I reached over and patted her shoulder. Her returning smile was strained, but it was a start.

This ones good. Here, Pax. Cindra handed him a plant shed pulled from the ground, clumps of earth still clinging to its roots.

Check it in your book first, Pax. I swear that last one she pulled gave me warts on the inside of my mouth.

No, it didnt, Oliver. It was just tangy.

Tangy? He looked at her in disbelief. If it hadnt been for the nanites, my tongue wouldve choked me. He grabbed her around the waist as she laughed up at him.

Pax turned the page in his book. Did you know that some plants are covered with tiny hairs filled with poison, and that when you put them in your mouth, the hairs break off and embed themselves in your tongue and funnel the poison right into you?

Yes, Pax, I did, firsthand. That information wouldve been useful earlier, thank you.

Youre welcome, Pax said, distracted. Hed pilfered as many of the survival books from the storeroom as he could find, and was reading them as he walked. I grabbed his elbow to steer him away from the crumbling lip of a large badger-hole.

Dont worry, Oliver. When we get to where were going, Ill grow you something safe. Although Id had to leave my seedlings behind, Id taken every seed packet I could find. Where we were going, there would be arable land. We would begin again, with or without the sun. I scanned the sky for the hundredth time that day. Id told them Id seen it in my final moments, but none of them believed me, although they said they did.

It didnt matter. All of us were pretending now, for each others sakes. We pretended we would find Tor, healthy and whole, that we would make it to the coast quietly and unscathed, that we would discover an island to call our own. That the Cosmists would let Fane, their lifes work, go so easily. That Callums body disappearing didnt mean anything. That we would grow old and die quietly in our beds, the world following us not long after, tranquil and still, at rest at last.

But we all knew it wasnt over. That it might never be over. Nothing in the future had changed; it was still coming for us.

I suppose that what happened to us could be told in the story of Frankenstein. Do you remember that story? Its not one of mine. Victor Frankenstein was a young man, who, like many others of his time and ours, witnessed those he loved sicken and die. His grief over the tenuousness of human life was devastating, as it was to us, and his mind turned toward alchemy and immortality to ease the sorrow of the human condition. And like the scientists in our time, Victor discovered the secret of life.

Cindra, Letter to Omega

The dream changed when I changed. When I became. The green grass of the emerald sea decayed and fell to a wasteland, an endless graveyard of what we once were. I stumbled over the others who lay beneath me as I ran, the splinters of their bones opening the soles of my feet.

I was no longer a child. No longer even human. Everything that had once held me together now swarmed: my bones, my skin, my flesh, my blood; I was undone. My hands-that-were-no-longer-hands were empty, my kite gone. I mourned its loss as the pieces of me ran toward the tree at the center of the barren earth.

It still lived, though only a single green leaf remained. He stood at the base of the trunk, waiting. As always. Only, this time, he wasnt expecting me. Instead, he anticipated the end. His end. Ours had already come, and he no longer saw me.

His face wasnt as I remembered it. Hed covered it with metal, and his mouth, once mournful, was gone. I reached out to trace the lines where his markings shouldve been, but I wasnt present enough; neither of us felt the other anymore. Only when he raised his hand in farewell did we finally meet, the fragments of me embedding in his new skin.