BARMAH FOREST

Running through the forest floor on the outskirts of Nerimah, he trips over one of the red ones. It’s a girl, early twenties kind of young and would have been quite pretty when The Source was with her. Her hair is vivid red and long, hanging like wet drapes stuck to her luminous chiseled cheeks, marked with holes the size of pins. 'She’s a Redfree,’ ponders Aden.

A sweet acidic stench emanates from an intricate heart-shaped locket that the Redfree clutched, making Aden wince back. Before she had transitioned, she had laid down on the forest floor with intent, pressing down the heart-shaped locket with her two hands firmly folded on top of her chest. Her grip was still firm. The dry air had suspended the acid to form a faint cloud floating ominously above her. ‘Her soul didn’t make it outta here,’ he thought and wondered what was in that heart-shaped locket that was so important to her. A recent transition. ‘Shame, could have used some company, sorry she didn’t make it,’ he says loud enough to rustle a lizard from its sunny afternoon gaze.

Aden removes the locket from The Redfree’s clutch, carefully placing it in his puffer pocket, and quickly navigates his way back to the path. If he doesn’t make it to Barmah in the next couple of hours, he will miss out on The Landings. He leaves the lizard and her behind.

It was a Sunday afternoon at Aden’s mum’s house. They had decided to meet together as a family to watch The Reveal. Even his dad, crumpled under the strain of backyard bourbon, was there to have his day. The media had been beating up the story all week, you know, news packages edited together with the urgent sound of military marching music framing the headliners, plucked fresh from the garden of hyperbole. ‘Important Announcement for humanity’ (IAH) became known after that as the day of The Reveal. The Family is used to announcements from the media-controlled elite and vigilante groups that hacked the media platforms - the Noncosun trials, the Black Knights of Ara; the Assangeneers, and even unclassified CIA Military reveals that this one didn’t seem any different or concerning. Yet they gathered. ‘Where are all the humans hiding?’ teases Aden as he leans over his father’s arm to grab a swig of his dad’s brew. 'I got one,' he says as he firmly grips his dad's arm.

Fat sausages, remnants of shot deer, lay sizzling on the BBQ, hissing with bursts of energy, forcing grey globules to ooze out from within its skin, spitting up at a dogleg to mark Aden’s face. He swatted them off like flies only to leave a grey smear across his face like a warrior in battle. The cold brew presented such sweet relief to the blistering dry of the locust summer, disrupted only by the sound of the warrior turning sausages with his makeshift tongs. Humans eat when in waiting.

Later that afternoon, the IAH made their announcement. Only 6,000 souls are going to the Landings in the sand states. Aden was not drafted, he was selected. For what? He knows more than what’s spoken. The family didn’t waste time to see him off, with only two hours to cross the ridge down to the sea. There was no time for goodbyes or good luck.

Those left behind are The Remainders. They are either the GMO’s, the Parasites, or the Plastics, also known as The Reds, when their skin goes red once toxins bond with injectables and implants. Some poor souls have all three categories and haven’t got a chance. They are called Red 3 or Redfree’s for short. They did it to themselves all for free; the G’s didn’t have to do a thing. We all know our rightful place and order. No one feels grief or even fear, especially the ones closest to transition. They are the calmest ones of all. With their black books, faith, prayers, and beliefs, it sure wasn’t any of those making them calm.

Days before, Aden was lying on an infirmary bed, sweating out a 42-degree fever, in and out of a lucid, vivid dream. Hours earlier, he had been playing gridiron in his local hybrid team. Not any local team we are talking about, The Stripes. Aden was the best-rated defense player in the league. Through his trademark white mouth guard, he became known by his fans as Pearly. They didn’t like the knockout one bit, but they sure did roar as the guard removed the mouthguard from Pearly’s mouth and triumphantly fisted it into the air like a rare prize on a safari hunt. That day The Stripes won more than a game.

Pearly is broad-shouldered, dark, and with rich caramel eyes that melt into his ice whites. His teeth are also the same white, and you can tell is not from the Plastics. There is a quiet strength in his inner core and an optimism that is often mistaken for hope. For Pearly, life was never about building castles and empires, and his wisdom remains encapsulated like a walnut in its kernel, ready to be cracked open at the first green shoot of spring.

He can see a kaleidoscope of truths in his vivid dream, all blaring out at him in colors. Every color but black and white were there. Why were they missing? Aden never thought color could speak to him in sentences. Hadn’t he once read about a local kid who read mathematical equations in color? What doesn’t make sense is making more sense than anything anyone has ever taught him. ‘Who would have thought color could talk? And all at once,’ he muses.

Aden understood everything the colors were telling him, like a sonic wave of intelligence. For a fleeting moment, he looked down to check his wrist to make sure he wasn’t administered The Good Drug developed by Alurian founder Xander.

Alurian started well, popular, and fun before it turned into a system of slavery. Most people didn’t realize what had happened even when they became Alurian citizens and lived on Alurian food and products purchased from Alurian cloud cities. ‘Frogs in boiling water they were,’ Aden scoffed.

It went too far when their Alurian avatars became real, and no one had jobs anymore because their funds were going straight to Alurian avatar blockchains. Every God damn Avatar was Alurian which was really Xander. It all went to him. One man. It was all mirrors. A mirror chamber of Alurian. Those folks even had to be scanned to exit their house, and they thought it was genius because they got to see what Parasites they had in them causing this ache or that and take the right Alurian supplement to optimize their day. They felt great but lost everything. Nothing they ever took got rid of those Parasites, but it did take the pain away for one day. One day at a time.

Alurian happened right before their very eyes. Or under their eyes. It was a Wild West bonanza right before the Robotica revolution, which changed everything. ‘Robots don’t get Parasites,’ mused Aden. You won’t find walnuts growing on trees anymore, but you sure can still crack a nut, he laughs.

The Landings are meeting places along the new grid lines that rose from the earth after the poles shifted back and forth, making the globe pivot from its usual orbit. The moon is now in a strange position and spinning at a discord frequency. The world stabilized enough for the poles to rehome, and the moon eventually found its entrainment with earth. They were the Dark Days. The gridlines are holding the earth in place with magnetic force fields. Without these, we don’t have The Source, and none of us would be here.

There are portals along the gridlines where the G holds Selections. It’s the Gridlines that have always kept this earth in balance. And here we are, just thinking those indigenous fellas had big imaginations. They were singing the old gridline stories for thousands of years. It took the rest of us a long time to catch up. They were the ones selected in ancient times and passed on their knowledge over thousands of years. ‘Should have taken more notice then,’ Aden laments.

It was one of the gridline paths Aden was following through the forest. A well-worn path that carries the blood, sweat, and bruised dreams of ancient peoples. As he reached the ridge, he could see The Gathering below. Aden swiftly moves down the bank across the Barmah Caves and then along the dusty waterfall lines to meet at the base. They were all there and ready.

Aden joins the line to be scanned, looking steely forward while sneaking darting glances with his eyes around the Selection site. A mix of men and women, all his age. Black, Brown, or red hair and youthful. He knows this is a Selection for gene pooling to make clones, which means he might become paired.

As he nears the scanners, packets of water are handed out by the G’s. Not water from rivers, why there aren’t any of those left. This water is from the sea, hydrolyzed, and remineralized to boost redox molecules for energy production. We don’t need food when we have redox. ‘That stuff makes us alert. They want us alert,’ thought Aden.

The G’s are the Others, who fled earth during the purge and have come back again. They came back so differently that their DNA is twelve strands, not two. That makes them superior in design to the rest of us, and they know how to herd people like sheep. There’s no recourse with them. The Others don’t kill anyone, there are no guns, so everyone is safe. ‘We may not be free, but we are safe until we are not,’ realizes Aden. The G's know how we think. That’s their weapon. Our thoughts are theirs. We are programmable, and the data we produce for them tames and contains us. The G’s and humans are like the difference between a Ferrari and a pushbike.

Glancing over to his right, Aden sees a white lab ship positioned at the edge of the ocean. One of the Others is placing his hand on one of the Selected. A woman. She’s beautiful with long slender legs and red hair spiraling down her back intertwined with a long white scarf. Her body is radiating warmth from the redox. Aden notices a scar on her chest, and it reminds him of the same shape as the heart-shaped locket found on the Redfree with red velvet hair. He is drawn closer to her and is about to reach out when the Others take him away.

Following the Screening, Aden strips bare and lies in a room of 3D cloning beds. He had heard about clones but had never seen anyone who was a clone. But how would he know? The clones are an essential program to help re-populate earth after the Dark Days. It is Aden’s genes that will be cloned and spread across other countries. ‘Which country will my clone be going to?’ he wonders.

Lying dressed in the recovery room, Aden catches a waft of a familiar smell. A sweet acidic fragrance. It’s her. The Redfree. He turns around, and they lock eyes, only to realize she’s not a Redfree anymore. Aden places his hand into his puffer pocket to show her the heart-shaped locket. She signals him to be careful. He slips the heart-shaped locket back into his pocket. She is one of them, and they are to be paired and dispatched. Aden does not know where the G's will send them, but he does know she chose him.