“I was lucky enough to recieve a signed copy of the novel from my Auntie in Canada and struggled to put it down from the moment I got it in the mail!

Nina writes in such a way that you are transported from your chair directly into the story. Her selection of language and delicate descriptions enable you to envisage every location in exquisite detail, keeping you fully involved with the action from cover to cover. By the closing chapters I felt as though I knew the characters on a personal level; as if I knew them in the real world! Again, another brilliant skill that Nina has developed through her career.

The main story itself is quite possibly one of the best I have had the pleasure to read.

I found myself up until the early hours of most mornings reading chapter after chapter in a bid to uncover more of Ms Crane’s story! All I can say is that if you like a good Sci-fi read then ‘Darwin’s Paradox’ shouldn’t be missing from your shelves!”–Toby Rottner, UK

Thanks, Toby! We’re very glad you enjoyed Darwin’s Paradox.

Angel of Chaos, its prequel, follows the story of how Julie Crane got to where she was in Darwin’s Paradox. It’s a medical eco-thriller not to be missed by fans of Julie Crane.

Shakespeare and Company in Paris

Some good friends of Nina were strolling along the Seine in Paris France recently and were lured into a quaint bookstore on the Left Bank, Shakespeare and Company. The independent bookstore lies just across the magestic Notre Dame Cathedral on Ile de la Cite and steps away from the trendy cafes of Place St. Michel.

Shakespeare and Company resides in a building that served as a monastery in the 16th century. It’s located on Rue de la Bûcherie and serves as both a bookstore and a reading library, specializing in English-language literature. The bookstore was opened by George Whitman under Le Mistral then changed to its current name  in honour of an earlier store which closed during World War II. The bookstore served as a focal point for

Darwin's Paradox in Shakespeare and Company

 literary culture in Bohemian Left Bank Paris. Customers have included the likes of Henry Miller and Richard Wright. The store  was a base for many writers of the Beat Generation like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs. Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia, now runs the shop and regular activities include Sunday tea, poetry readings and writers’ meetings.

The bookstore houses young writers, known as “tumbleweeds”, who earn their keep by working in the shop for a couple of hours each day. The current store is named after and in honour of an

Autographed copy of Darwin's Paradox on the shelf

earlier store which closed during World War II. George Whitman calls the bookstore “a socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore”.  The bookstore includes sleeping facilities, with 13 beds, and Whitman claims as many as 40,000 people have slept in the shop over the years.

As Nina’s friends pored over the eclectic assortment of international and local English and French books they stumbled upon a copy of Darwin’s Paradox! They had to take a picture and here it is.

That Darwin sure gets around!

And thanks, Chuck and Jane, for telling us!

Nina’s SF ecological thriller Darwin’s Paradox was selected by Edgar Dunning of the Delta Optimist for a dog nutrition supplements
good Christmas read: "If you haven't selected the books you want as gifts for friends or yourself, here are some suggestions you might find suitable...Darwin's Paradox by Nina Munteanu, published by Dragon Moon Press of Calgary, is an engaging read that makes the reader think. When a virus and an intelligent machine conspire to seize North America's largest city, then threaten to spread world chaos, the only person who can save humanity is the woman who started it all. The author created an inventive future and an indomitable hero. It's an interesting read."

Merry Christmas! And happy reading!

• Spokane, Washington
• Bozeman, Montana
• Sioux Falls, South Dakota
• Omaha, Nebraska
• Kansas City, Kansas
• Columbia, Missouri
• Saint Louis, Missouri
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Chicago, Illinois.

Look for Nina's ongoing commentary as she journeys across America on her personal blog, The Alien Next Door.

Nina’s book got some very nice reviews from fellow Canadian authors, Lynda Williams (author of Righteous Anger and others of the Okal Rel Universe series) and Jennifer Rahn (The Longevity Thesis). Nina recently reviewed Lynda’s book, Righteous Anger on Lynda’s blog, Reality Skimming. Here’s what these authors had to say about Darwin’s Paradox:

“Lively action with a people plot”

By Lynda Williams (The Okal Rel Series)

Darwin’s Paradox is rich with real science and vitamin c dosage for dogs
people who care about each other, whether in a good way or a bad one. Lovers of techno-thrillers will enjoy the blend of super AIs and biological AIs bent on meddling with mankind. At the same time, Darwin's Paradox injects hope into a post holocaust type of setting threatened with a typically SF scenario of doom. Munteanu writes with energy and a lively sense of joy in her work. Her main character, Julie, possesses the superpowers of an info-age homo superior: she can communicate pseudo-telepathically with others like herself and with AIs. In addition to her mental gifts she is also physically superior. What's unusual about her as a homo superior heroine is her role as the unwitting vector of the plague that decimated her people. While Julie contends with the twists and turns of the plot, she is simultaneously threatened by the risk of losing her husband and daughter, both literally and emotionally. The challenges she navigates are personal, throughout, in parallel with the fast-paced action.

"Nina gives more than a story"

Imagine a mysterious virus that devastates half a population, while giving certain individuals enhanced mental abilities, allowing them to "psychically" link to a server containing an artificial intelligence that seems to be developing autonomy. What if that virus turned out to be deliberately engineered? What would be the motivations of the designer? What if the virus turned out to be more than it seemed, and had ideas of its own?In "Darwin's Paradox", Nina Munteanu (author of "Collision with Paradise", and "The Cypol") serves up a dually plotted story that's part novel, part philosophical treatise on the nature of mankind and its inexorable evolution, driven by both natural and man-made pressures. Julie Crane, the central character, is a woman with a complicated and violent past, who must deal with the life she left behind to protect the peaceful existence she enjoys with her family now. As the novel opens, the back story and contemporary plot line are unfolded concurrently, until they eventually collide, and Julie is faced with the struggle of her life against unknown political forces in Icaria-5, her previous home, from which she had to flee as an unfairly labeled murderer and deliberate spreader of Darwin's Disease. She's never sure of who her allies or enemies are as she struggles to free herself from old accusations . . . and neither is her innocent, 12 year old daughter, who naively stumbles into her mother's past.Looking for a thinking person's novel? Give "Darwin's Paradox" a try.  

For over fifty years, the bookshop has housed numerous writers and hosted readings by published and unpublished authors. Run by Sylvia Whitman, daughter of the legendary George Whitman, the bookstore looks like something in a Harry Potter movie, with stacks upon stacks of all sorts of literature. Upon entering, you’ll find yourself in a place Henry Miller described as “A wonderland of books”.

Shakespeare and Company is open evey day from 10:00 to 23:00. If you’re touring Paris go check it out. The selection of English books is impeccable, with many by local writers.

If you’re a young traveling writer looking for a place to crash, Sylvia might put you up too!
While I was there, we briefly toured the city, including the impressive Tuillerie Gardens on the Right Bank.

Nina took me to vitamin b12 dogs
her "outdoor" office, located in Place Saint-Michel on the Left Bank with a great view of Notre Dame Cathedral. I asked her how she liked Paris over a pastis (anise-based liqueur) and cafe creme.

"I love Paris," she said. "I love everything about it, the food, the people, the architecture, the streets...The street performers who sing with feeling...the couples kissing on every street corner...that quiet reserve that just melts once they recognize that you are lost... their reverence for art and literature... Parisians know how to live. They have no problem waiting at length in line for fresh croissants at their favorite patisserie or will linger over lunch at a cafe to discuss the finer points of life over an espresso or cheese and wine. They are so civilized."

I asked her how her research was going.

"I confess that I have done some of my best work here... that pastis can be very inspirational!" Nina confided to me with that typical impish smile of hers.

The Gist: Julie Crane has a vitamin b complex dogs
lot of skeletons in her closet. She had the unleashed the Darwin virus on the world, murdered a government official, and then ran away from all the chaos she had created.

That is what the history books say, but often history is changed, twisted and confused from what really happened.

Julie fled into the wilderness outside of the cities with her husband. Outside of the influence of everyone and everything Julie learned to live in this wilderness. She gives birth to her daughter Angel and looks forward to living a life with nature.

All of this is shattered when Julie discovers that she is being hunted again. She makes a journey back to the city, alone. Julie’s daughter convinces her father to go after Julie and they too make their way to the city.

Back in the city Julie is confronted with the political intrigue, societal differences, and the mass of humanity she left behind.

It’s up to Julie, her family and new friends to unravel what is true and what is false and set things right for the future

The Good: This is a book of heavy, heady concepts in this book, chaos theory, human neurophysiology, ecosystems and sustainability, viruses, AI’s and more. It really gives some oomph behind the story of Julie and the other characters.

The vision of the future is well done and I’m a sucker for near future stories that have all of the elements of political intrigue, cybernetics, rebels against the system, AI’s going wonky, and a glimpse at future life.

The Bad: The human story elements seemed a bit weaker than the world itself and the concepts of humans living in the future. It seemed that Julie was moving on a very linear path through the world and not really deviating. For me, some of the supporting characters seemed more interesting, like her daughter Angel or the quirky, sleazy ex-Mayor.

It’s a bit confusing at the start with the barrage of the background information you get at the beginning.

The Ugly: Nothing really ugly to report.

Nina Munteanu weaves a good story that has some large concepts peppered through it. The story does have warts but they are easy enough to gloss over and dig into the main story. There are some nice twists and turns and rabbit holes to follow the tale down. I hope that future books have more about the world, the citizens who inhabit it, and the politics of city states.

I easily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a nice mix of science fiction, political intrigue and some big scientific concepts. Go pick it up!

"I really enjoy meeting my readers and having stimulating discussions with people on topics of evolution, chaos theory, endosymbiosis and the like," said Munteanu in a recent interview in a downtown bistro over a glass of red wine. "I find the readers at Chapters to be generally very intelligent with a diversity of backgrounds and interests. It doesn't matter whether they buy the book or not; they always have something interesting to say about these topics. For instance, I met Tove Peterson, a scientologist who writes poetry and belongs to the Northshore Writers Club. There's Stephen who's favorite author is Wilbur Smith. There's Martin, a physicist who builds solar power projects; then there's Joanna, a keen evolution student at Langara College; and Phil who went to Ryerson with Robert J. Sawyer. As Forrest Gump said, 'you just never know what you're gonna get'."

Nina continues her local booktour with signings in March at the Langley Chapters (Langely Centre on March 9th), the Surrey Chapters (Strawberry Hill on March 15th), the Vancouver Chapters (Broadway & Granville on March 22nd), and the Burnaby Chapters (at Metrotown Centre on March 29th). She then takes her booktour abroad to Europe and finally ends in Eastern Canada (Ottawa) in April.

Discover Magazine (Jan, 2008 issue) reported that “scientists now believe that during the early universe, dark matter provided the gravitational scaffolding on which ordinary matter surrounding them should have clumped together into hundreds of small satellite galaxies, most of which should have survived today.” But the observed number of satellite galaxies is only a fraction of what the theory predicted. Astronomers call it the missing satellite problem.

So, what does author Philip Pullman have to do with dark matter and why should he care?…This is the Philip Pullman of the His Dark Materials trilogy with his first installment, The Golden Compass, now a deliciously controversial major motion picture (which I will be reviewing as soon as I see it–very soon)… Well…Consider the title of his series, His Dark Materials. While Pullman certainly borrows his title as well as his overarching theme from Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, Pullman’s title and his magical particle, Dust, also takes the concept of dark matter from real science. The mysterious material called “Dust”, which ‘speaks’ through Lyra’s aletheometer is also known as “dark matter” in an alternative ‘parallel universe’ of Pullman’s book.

I find it rather curious and ironic that The Golden Compass opened this past December (2007), so close to Christmas, a religious holiday when Christians all around the world are gearing up to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The irony lies in the fact that so many Christian weblogs have been vilifying Pullman as not only being an atheist (which is anyone’s prerogative, after all) but for promoting anti-God sentiments and atheism to children. However, despite the fact that Pullman adamantly opposes religious authoritarianism, his books uphold the important values of love and sacrifice. And faith (I’ll get back to that later). What I both enjoy and find compelling in a controversy (and Pullman’s particularly) is that at its core lies a challenge to ALL parties to re-evaluate their position amidst new information. A controversy is ultimately a learning experience for all involved. Controversies, like good art, invite the collision of diametric opposed ideas, and provide a nexus point for discussion, change, and—if all are respectful—eventual redemption and reconciliation.

According to Mike Todd of the Vancouver Sun (Dec. 8, 207) three major themes in casey pets essential supplement
Pullman’s books enmesh potential controversies surrounding science, art and religion. For instance, Pullman meant for the sinister organization known as the “Magisterium” to represent all ideology-driven theocracies or dictatorships, including secular ones. The concept in Pullman’s book of the “Authority”, who the two child protagonists help to defeat, led to accusations that Pullman advocates the “death of God”. I don’t think he meant this at all. Donna Freitas, a Catholic feminist professor at Boston University calls Pullman “a liberation theologian”, freeing Christians from the traditional church image of an all-powerful tyrant God who “rules from the clouds.” (Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun, Dec. 8, 2007). Then there is “Dust”, elemental particles (resembling dark matter) that appear to contain a kind of conscious energy, experiments on which the church (in the book) prohibits. Pullman’s own ‘faith’ in these particles can be suggested in his admission to following “panexperientialism”, a philosophy that suggests that all living things, even molecules, have traces of consciousness (shades of Sheldrake’s ideas, autopoiesis and local fields). Another author who explores this concept is SF author, Greg Bear (see his Darwin’s Radio and Darwin’s Children).

Donna Freitas, in Killing the Imposter God, suggested that Dust acted in Pullman’s trilogy as the “divine fabric of the universe.” Could Dark Matter do the same?... Aren’t we all creatures of light…and dark, after all?...

Posted under Nina Reviews. Tags: Golden Compass, Philip Pullman, books, movies, fantasy, science fiction, dark matter

Book Review: Darwin’s Paradox
November 19, 2007 — Tricia Ares
Munteanu, Nina. Darwin’s Paradox. Dragon Moon Press. 320 p. ISBN-10 189694468X (ISBN-13 9781896944685) $19.95

If you read the natural pet vitamins
acknowledgements at the front of Nina Munteanu’s latest book, you’ll realize Darwin’s Pradox is more than just a fast paced eco-thriller. Among others she thanks her high school English teacher, A.E. Whittal, for teaching her “the importance of metaphoric writing.”

The Victor Frankl quote at the front of the book, “What is to give light must endure burning,” is the first indication of the numerous paradoxical references you’ll find throughout the book, as Munteanu sets the stage for a story on the verge of transcending its genre.

In Darwin’s Paradox, Julie Crane is civilization’s darkest pariah and only hope. The alpha patient who carries a highly evolved virus, she is blamed with the death of thousands and the murder of law enforcement officials who tried to detain her.

We first meet Crane in the wilderness where she ekes out an existence with her husband and daughter. However, her reoccurring nightmares and the desire to protect her family agitate her growing sense of restlessness. When her highly evolved senses warn her that they are being followed, watched, perhaps even hunted, Crane decides she has no choice but to face the past.

Returning to a populous devastated by the virus that still resides deep within her, Crane finds a civilization struggling in the grip of a new uprising. Proteus is not a passive virus but an intelligent one, and it has joined forces with the ‘artificial’ intelligence that keeps the city running. In order to save her family, Crane must join forces with the manipulative individuals who ruined her life.

Like any ambitious eco-thriller, there is a lot of science underscoring the plot, but Munteanu does a great job of breaking it down into bite size portions that even the uninitiated can swallow.

The page turning pace subtly weaves expositional elements through a storyline propelled by action and mystery. Blurring the line between good and evil, Munteanu creates characters as paradoxical as the storyline itself.

Darwin’s Paradox also boasts a cast of exceptionally strong and complex women whose relationships intertwine and evolve like the deadly virus that binds them together. From the chair of the governing body, to Julie’s daughter, each of these characters serve pivotal roles throughout the book.

To give it depth, Munteanu has built her eco-thriller on a solid foundation of natural philosophy and symbolic allusions that meld pulp fiction with literary sensibilities. In doing so, Darwin’s Paradox delivers a story that is both entertaining and metaphoric, creating a layered effect that will engage even finicky readers.

Allusions to the French utopian movement founded by Etienne Cabet and the 19th century anti-industrial movement in Great Britian, underscore the conflict between nature and technology, while references to cooperative rather than competitive evolution hints at possible resolution.

Munteanu’s vision of the future is both frightening and inspiring, embracing the dark/light dichotomy dominating Darwin’s Paradox. Icaria’s vee-set wearing society, with their mechanical movements and vacant stares, resembles the disconnected iPod population of today. The contrast between the sterile environments of glass towers and the rubble of the inner city mirrors our own growing economic tensions. But just as Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortal man, Julia Crane carries the key that can transform civilization as we know it.

Darwin’s Paradox is a fascinating look into the future where man ceases his attempt to subjugate nature, while embracing its ability to adapt.

Darwin’s Paradox is on sale now at leading bookstores and at amazon.com. Visit us tomorrow for a one on one interview with the author, Nina Munteanu.

Posted in Book Reviews. Tags: Book Reviews, Darwin, Darwin's Paradox, Evolution, Nina Munteanu, Science Fiction, SF, speculative fiction.

You can visit her inspiring blog here:

http://modernmatriarch.wordpress.com

[display_podcast]

It’s Canada’s oldest science fiction bookstore. Located in Toronto’s funky Queen Street West, this shop has hosted many a big name science fiction writer signing, including Robert J. Sawyer, who used to work there during his salad days. Those of you passing through Toronto, Canada, or who live there, you can now find my book, “Darwin’s Paradox” on the shelves of this genre bookstore. And if you can’t find my book, it’s only because it’s temporarily sold out! (so I was told the other day). More were on order and may have arrived by now.

I will nonetheless be appearing there this Friday to vitamins for pets
sign the last remaining copy (or others, if they’ve arrived) as Bakka waits for more to come in (very soon!). If you live in or are visiting Toronto, please consider visiting this independent bookstore dedicated to good science fiction, and support the independent bookstore industry by buying something from the knowledgeable and friendly staff (well, you know which book I’m going to suggest!).
Here’s their address:

Bakka-Phoenix Books
697 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON, M6J1E6
CANADA

Worldwide Release

DARWIN’S PARADOX IS OUT TODAY!

It’s been an incredible journey bringing Darwin’s Paradox to light!  It has just been awe-inspiring to watch this project develop into a global affair… 

Please join us in celebrating!

The book is currently being sold at:

Amazon United States

Amazon Canada

Amazon Germany

Amazon United Kingdom

Amazon France

Amazon Japan

The book can be found throughout North America (both at stores and through their online webstores) at:
Barnes & Noble United States
Borders.com United States
Chapters-Indigo Canada
White Dwarf Books Vancouver, B.C.
The Sentry Box Calgary, Alberta
Blackwell Books United Kingdom

It is also being offered through various online bookstores as an ebook!

You can also buy or order the book at Target , one of the major department stores in the U.S. as well as India and Malaysia.   It can also be purchased through Wal-Mart, a major retailer, or online at Buy.com, yet another major retail store.

It’s been only half-a-day and cats supplement
I noticed that it's ALREADY temporarily out of stock/sold out at most stores. YOU did that! Thank you so much! Those of you who haven't ordered it yet; not to worry...go ahead and order...more are coming!

Here is the Press Release from PRWeb:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/darwins-paradox/nina-munteanu/prweb568631.htm

Shine on SFgirl, shine on!

~~~~~~~~~~~

One day away from “Darwin’s Paradox” launch at Amazon (and other bookstores around the world)…I’m kind of beside myself, looking on and whispering: “Hey! Comb your hair, girl!”…

Oh, in honor of the book, Karen Mason created the dog vitamin k
really neat widget of "Darwin's Paradox" over to the right there. If you like the book, or what I write here, or just plain like "me" (embarrassed grin) ... and want to support/advertize the book, please go ahead and put the widget on your site. I thank you so much for your support, dear reader.

When an intelligent virus and vitamin supplements for dogs
an intelligent machine community conspire to threaten the world with destruction and chaos, the only person who can save humanity is the woman who caused the cataclysm in the first place. Compelled by the virus awoken inside her, Julie Crane returns to the city from which she fled, accused of atrocity, in an attempt to redeem herself and fulfill her final destiny as Darwin's Paradox, the key to the evolution of an entire civilization.

"An exciting novel...an engaging read...a thrill ride that makes us think and tugs the heart." -- Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of "Hominids" ( )

The cover art was done by the accomplished (Croatian) science fiction and fantasy illustrator, Tomislav Tikulin  of tomtikulin-art.com.  His artwork is transporting, evokative, eerie and thoughtful.   Darwin's Paradox is honored to be graced with his vision.

Darwin's Paradox is published by Dragon Moon Press, and is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

Fifteen

“Okay, let me do all the dog dietary supplements
talking,” Daniel said sternly to his willful daughter as they peered through the bushes at their gateway into Icaria, the glass tower rising from the outer-city rubble that rippled in the heat. “Remember, I used to live here.”

“That was twelve years ago, Dad,” she reminded him. “Things probably changed a lot since then. Like that skyship we borrowed.”

He frowned at her and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Smart aleck,” he murmured. She was alluding to his less than impressive ability to pilot the skyship, despite the fact that he used to drive tubejets, Icaria’s commuter trains. Once Angel had convinced him to use the skyship, it was she who eventually figured out how to drive the odious thing and navigate to the towers of Icaria. The skyship had saved them three weeks of travel, which meant that they were now hot on Julie’s heels. Daniel noticed Angel staring at the towering structure that rose like a shining sentinel out of the ruins of the surface city and realized with wry amusement that she’d never seen a building higher than one story before.

“It’s magnificent,” she said.

“Is it?” he teased, following her gaze up. Wait until you see the inside, he thought ~

Angel tugged the sleeve of his leather shirt. She looked concerned. “Dad, do you hear it too?” To his puzzled frown, she explained, “Those funny sounds . . . in my head.”

“Your mother heard them too.” He patted her on the shoulder as if to console her. “Don’t worry, they’re just the lower forms of artificial intelligence in the city talking to each other. You can hear them for the same reason that you and your mom can ‘talk’ to each other. Just ignore them.”

“Okay, Dad,” she said, tilting and shaking her head as if trying to get rid of water in her ears. That confirmed it: his daughter was a veemeld like her mother. And like her mother, one with special talents, he thought.

After stashing their packs, Daniel approached the building. He glanced down at the old service card he’d kept all these years and wondered if it would still work on the entrance door. This was not exactly the place he wanted to be. In fact, it was the last place he wanted to be. No great memories here. Except meeting his beloved Julie. She was the best thing that happened to him in Icaria. Now he had to go back in and try to find her and get her out. And he didn’t think it would be easy. First he had to convince his stubborn wife to leave. Then he had to convince Icaria to let her go. He thought of another possibility, one that had ached deep inside him and surfaced now. There was the awful but very possible chance that she was in no shape to leave or was even dead. He recalled those assassins she’d lured away from camp, for instance. Who had seized his wife? What if they’d taken her to the DP and conducted debilitating experiments on her? Turned her into a half-machine, eyes vacant and tubes coiling out of her into some immense A.I. device ~

“Daddy?” Angel looked at him expectedly.

“Think they still speak English?” Daniel winked at her, then drew in a deep breath.

In a few springing steps Angel beat him to the door. When she tried the door it refused to open. She turned back to her father with a frown.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her with a smirk. “This might work.” He held out the old card. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll find some other way. I was pretty good with technical stuff in my day,” he said, recalling how he’d tapped into the cyber-network to feed and clothe his fellow techno-slummers in the inner city. He extended the card, secretly wondering if they were setting off some alarm inside, and couldn’t pass it over the reader. His hand didn’t want to do it.

Angel took it gently from his hand and waved the card and they heard a soft click. Angel shrieked gleefully. “Look! The door’s opening!”

Too easy, Daniel thought and managed a wry smile. I’m starting to think like my wife. He put a finger to his lips, indicating silence, and walked through the open doorway. It led into an empty hallway with another door. Once they entered, he shut the outside Exit door behind him and felt a strange foreboding he couldn’t shake off. Exhaling, he led Angel to the next door. She was looking around her at the smooth peach-coloured walls and floor with interest. Just you wait, little one, he thought, waving his card at the next door. There’s more, he thought. So much more . . .

When he opened the inner door, they were assaulted by a dizzying cacophony of sounds, smells and images that made Angel start with surprise and gawk. Despite his unease with this place, Daniel couldn’t help laughing at his overwhelmed daughter. She’d just entered her first mall.

~~~~

A lot was the same. But a lot was different too, Daniel thought, noticing the inordinately high number of droids in the milling crowd as he surveyed Darwin Mall with his daughter and fought from wincing at every booming sound; he hadn’t remembered this place so noisy. Daniel swallowed self-consciously as they navigated the moving sea of dazzling colours. Instead of quietly blending in, they stood out of the crowd in their faded clothes like blazing holo ads.

Angel’s excitement drew him out of his dark thoughts and he let his gaze drift beyond the crowd. He’d forgotten how splendid Darwin Mall was with its vaulted arches of white light, intoxicating music and heady perfumes. As he watched Angel gawking in wide-eyed wonder, he was keenly aware of the mall’s alluring qualities. As though she’d entered an enchanted land, Angel kept snapping her head left and right then up to catch everything.

She pirouetted and twirled giddily as if animated by some invisible puppeteer. As if afraid to miss something. Like the giant moving holos above . . . the rushing sound of Icarians who sounded like a flock of chattering birds . . . the many droids that plied through the sea of people like shiny vessels . . . the glittering shops and restaurants and strobing signs that beckoned even the most seasoned Icarian with their alluring messages of pleasure and delights.

Once Angel had become used to all the people, she maneuvered the crowd easily, pulling Daniel along and bombarding him with questions: “What are those things they wear on their heads?”

“Vee-sets, darling. Like wearing a vee-com.”

“What’s a vee-com?”

“It’s a machine that thinks for you.” Big frown.

“The people look like machines,” she said. He had to agree; some looked mostly machine. Then Angel’s eyes lit up, “Who are they? How come they can fly like that?” Pointing to the holo ads floating above them.

“Those are holos, three-dimensional projections. They’re not real, Angel.” The feeling of discomfort, of conspicuousness returned.

“Look at that!” Pulling him toward a park. “They stuck part of the heath inside the mall!” Acutely aware that people were staring at them now.

“I think we should leave the mall, darling . . .” He sensed the crowd drawing away from them as if they had some disease ~

“Show me your ID,” a baritone voice commanded. Daniel turned, hand still clutching Angel’s, and felt the surge of alarm. It was a Pol dressed in beetle black. The crowd continued to swarm around them, leaving an empty space around the trio.

With a convulsive swallow, Daniel fought from cowering and started to stammer an incoherent reply, when Angel spoke up, “We lost them. Are you a cyborg?”

The Pol’s mouth grew stern, eyes hidden beneath his opaque visor. He towered over Daniel like a behemoth. Everything about him was huge. His chest distended like a barrel and his arms were as thick as Daniel’s legs. Ignoring Angel’s question, he asked Daniel in an unfriendly voice, “How did you manage to lose your I.D.s?”

“We-we . . .” Daniel stuttered desperately, his mind blank.

“We came in from Icaria-6 and left our I.D.s on the transport,” Angel said with a friendly smile.

The Pol decided wisely to direct his next questions to the girl and bending a little to look at her directly, he asked in a softer voice, “What’s your name?”

“Angel,” she said before Daniel could stop her. “Angel Woods. And that’s my dad, Daniel.” She pointed to Daniel, who was trying hard not to look agitated. But Angel seemed to have disarmed the Pol. The man was almost smiling.

“What’s your business here?” asked the Pol, now glancing at Daniel.

Daniel started, “We’re here to ~”

“Look for my mother,” Angel said. “Julie Crane.”

Time stopped.

Daniel’s stomach heaved. His heart hammered and he thought of seizing Angel and pelting out of there. Then his gaze fell on the Pol’s gun.

“I see,” the Pol said. His mouth tightened and it was obvious that he knew who Julie Crane was. “I think you better come with me.” His hand now rested on the gun.

“Do you know where she is?” Angel asked him, completely unaware of what she’d done.

“The legendary Julie Crane?” A smile finally slid across the Pol’s rough face. “I might.”

Fourteen

Julie walks SAM’s cold matrix with unease. No longer sparkling, the cat nutritional supplement
crystal walkway under her feet ripples as if alive and she feels her stomach twist with alarm. As the cloying wind blows into her face like an old man’s putrid breath, Julie knows she will see the dark figure again. Feet moving mechanically, against her will, she rounds the corner and encounters the dark figure. It beckons her and she recoils, but skids uncontrollably forward. Trying not to look into the shadowy face, she demands in a splintering voice, What do you want with me?

[You must not struggle, Julie Crane. It is time to complete the joining . . .]

Never! Leave me alone! Shuddering, she’s drawn nearer to the figure still. Its arms reach out for her and she cringes, knowing somehow that if it touches her she will perish. The cowl of the figure’s robe falls back, revealing its face. Her own face, strangely distorted. NO!

Julie bolted awake to her own outcry. Blinking away the sleep and sweat clouding her vision, she realized that she was lying on a comfortable bed, covered in soft sheets. Heart still pounding, she pulled in a ragged breath as she untangled the turmoil of post-dream emotions that poured through her. That had been less a dream than vision . . . or communication. A jolt of adrenalin surged up her chest. If that was Darwin creeping unbidden into her mind, intruding . . . What did Proteus want?

Forcing herself to breathe deeply, she raised herself on an elbow and surveyed herself and the room. She was wearing a silky nightdress and she wasn’t in a Med-Center. The room was too nice, containing expensive furniture and personally decorated with art. She saw a desk with a Vee-com, and a glass door to a patio outside, revealing a sunny day. There was no sign of her old heath clothes. They’d probably been recycled, she thought sadly.

Julie sat up, feeling completely strengthened. A quick inspection revealed that her arm was totally healed. Nuergery and Icaria’s wonderful nano-drugs, no doubt. She ran her hands over her bare arms and legs and confirmed nuyu-smooth skin. Cuts, tears and scars had been healed and she was smoother than she’d ever been. She was reminded of the first time she’d been treated without being asked, when she’d been brought back to the outer-city after searching unsuccessfully for her lost sister. They’d straightened her teeth then. She wondered what they’d done to her this time. Coloured her hair? She pulled a strand in front of her eyes to inspect and smiled with relief. No, they’d left her sun-streaked hair alone.

As she focused outward she noticed someone seated quietly in a chair near one of two closed doors. It was Frank. Arms folded over his chest and one leg crossed loosely over his thigh, he was looking directly at her with a thoughtful look and eyes the colour of a stormy sea. He smiled cautiously when he noticed her looking at him.

She tilted her head and returned his smile with a wry one. “You the guard?”

He smirked. “To keep the notorious Julie Crane from rampaging Icaria, you mean?”

She let her smile fade. “Something like that.” The last time she’d seen him, she had been tearing around Icaria and half the Pols chasing her, with Frank, barely mended from her shot, leading the pack.

He nodded soberly then turned the chair around and sat down again, folding his arms over the backrest. “Wrong. Like you were about a lot of things back then.”

“So it seems,” she returned, thinking about Darwin. Was it possible she’d misread him that time when he and Vadim’s gang had cornered her and Daniel in that inner-city mall?

“Oh, I had Darwin, all right,” he answered her unspoken question with a glower. “Pretty bad, too. But miracles do happen in Icaria.”

She wondered how that had been possible. Had Burke managed to find a cure that fast? The bitterness she’d detected in Frank’s voice . . . Did he blame her for his sickness?

“So,” he said with a frosty smile, “imagine my delight the day I dutifully gave Burke your data cube and discovered that I’d been infected with Darwin by none other than Prometheus herself ~”

“Frank, I didn’t know until after we broke up that I was Prometheus . . . and I don’t think I passed it ~”

“Yes, the woman who willingly exchanged her bodily fluids with me ~ for months ~ without telling me that she had Darwin ~”

“I didn’t know!”

“Then left me once she was sure I was dying from it.” He leaned forward. “You knew all the signs, sweetheart.” His smile grew surly. “Elegant revenge ~ I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

They’d each had reason to invoke revenge: Frank’s father had arrested hers for a murder he didn’t commit, and Julie’s father had supposedly incriminated his as a Dystopian, which he wasn’t. Both had died maligned.

She gave up trying to convince him that she hadn’t known. The information on the cube had incriminated her. She’d have a hard time proving that she’d only discovered herself that she was Prometheus after they’d broken up. SAM had provided evidence to suggest that she couldn’t pass it on. But Frank wouldn’t listen to that ~ he was too set on blaming her. And maybe he was right.

“But, just like you escaped execution, I escaped death. Not only did I defeat Darwin in me,” he went on, “I’m now the Head Pol.” He laughed sharply at her stunned expression. “So, no harm done, eh?” he ended in a mock cavalier voice. She had no response for that and bowed her head.

After some silence, he asked, “How are you feeling?”

She looked up to meet his eyes. “Much better, thank you,” she said honestly and searched his face for genuine forgiveness. She couldn’t find it.

“That was some nightmare you just had,” he said, obviously expecting her to elaborate.

She didn’t. “How long have I been here?”

“Since yesterday. You were in the Pielou Med-Center for two days until I had you returned here. Don’t you remember anything?”

She blinked with a thoughtful frown and let her gaze drift as she sifted through fragments of memories . . . or dreams . . . or feverish visions . . . it was hard to separate them, they all ran together like a water-colour painting left in the rain. They churned in a maelstrom of burning images and sensations. Blistering pain flaming through her ~ that was real. Bright lights hurting her eyes . . . foreign faces peering at her and discussing her by name . . . sighing into a soft pillow and being held in a warm embrace . . . inhaling a man’s scent . . . hearing Daniel’s soothing whispers ~ that had to be a dream . . . or was it? Her narrowed eyes snapped to Frank’s.

“Seems you do remember,” he said with a smirk as her expression of confusion bloomed into distress with understanding. “That’s my bed you’re in,” he ended, openly appraising her with smug pleasure. “This is my office suite and you bathed in my bathtub.” He pointed to the other door. But he was looking elsewhere.

She followed his devouring gaze to where her skimpy nightdress revealed the contours of her breasts. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, she brought the sheet up over her. As if in response to her action, his eyes narrowed. Was he insulted by her sudden coyness? During their torrid affair years ago when he was a Pol in the Shadow Unit, he had never taken her home. Now she was lying in his bed. Had he lain beside her delirious body last night? And touched her? Of course he had. She felt her anger spike like a hot knife twisting inside her. “You took advantage of me.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said pointedly. “But I could have.”

“By who’s definition ~”

“So, after all these years why did you decide to come back?” he demanded.

“Decide?” she retorted, straightening up in the bed. “I was kidnapped by your cronies. Tyers, who works under Dykstra, I take it works for you as a Secret Pol.”

“But you wanted to come back,” Frank insisted, avoiding her question. “Tyers said you’d abandoned your family and were heading for Icaria-5.”

Julie swallowed and wondered if she’d imagined his voice soften with compassion. She couldn’t trust him with the truth . . . yet. “I had my reasons.”

He studied her for a moment, then straightened suddenly as if he’d made a decision. “Well.” His voice was crisp again. “You look well enough to take a journey.” He stood up and tossed her the Com-Center clothes and turned toward the door. “Get dressed.”

“What about my other clothes?” she blurted out. “The clothes I came in?”

He didn’t turn or answer her. “I’ll get Tyers ~”

“Wait ~ Frank. Please,” she said, pleading. “Why am I here? What do you want of me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, turning his head only slightly to speak to her. He left the room and the door shut behind him with a soft nick.

[display_podcast]

Thirteen

They’d walked four days and Daniel felt his breaths drag through him like a hollow wind. “Slow down, Angel,” he called out, annoyed at her sprinting ahead of him like a white-tailed deer. He walked gingerly to keep his blisters from pinching his heels. “Isn’t it lunch time by now?” he said, stopping to catch his breath.

She turned to face him with a look of impatience. “Come on, Dad,” she insisted. But she stayed put and let him catch up. “You look like an old man,” she said rather disrespectfully, he thought.

“How do you know this is still the way?” he asked, having long forgotten the way back to Icaria. “We haven’t seen the river since yesterday afternoon.”

“It fits,” she said matter-of-factly. “Look over there. See all those scree slopes. They’re part of a major system of ancient alluvial fans when the river was in a different place from now. We’re still close to the big river that flows from Lake Ontario into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s just over that ridge there, I bet.”

“Smart aleck,” he muttered and pulled out a chunk of rabbit jerky from his pack and chewed. When he’d admitted finally to Angel that he wasn’t certain of the most expeditious route, she’d insisted on leading the way. Aard had shown her maps and educated her about the terrain. Although Daniel had found it odd that Aard would have given her that particular information ~ perhaps Aard had used it as a way to teach Angel navigation and orienteering ~ he was certainly grateful for it now.

Angel impressed her father by keeping up a ruthless pace and hiking a relentless fourteen hours a day. While he felt exhausted after ten hours, he refused to be the limiting factor and pushed himself to keep up with his spry daughter. She’d kept them on a grueling schedule, hiking across streams and gullies, through forest, bog and marsh. This rescue mission was killing him, he thought, reminded of the painful blisters on his feet and the gashes he’d received when he’d fallen several times, trying to follow his nimble daughter through steep hogbacks and gullies. He never could control any of his women, Daniel lamented. Why should Angel be any different.

When Angel saw that his breathing had returned to normal, she sprinted off again along the deer trail she’d discovered, leaving him behind as usual. With a resigned smile at his energetic daughter, Daniel hiked his heavy backpack over his shoulder and trudged after her. He wondered if Julie had walked this very deer trail and couldn’t help searching for any sign as he followed Angel up a scree slope of loose talus.

She’d stopped at the crest and waited for him to scramble up beside her. Below them a dried creek bed wove its way through a steep ravine and more scree rose on the other side. Great, Daniel thought, heaving in a long breath and mentally preparing himself to climb more loose talus.

“Let’s stop and eat here, Dad. I’m hungry.”

He smiled at her in silent appreciation. Angel had her limits after all. They ate from their store, which served a dual purpose of lightening his heavy backpack over time and making good time without needing to stop to hunt, forage and trap, which no doubt had slowed down Julie’s pace considerably. Daniel had noted that she hadn’t taken much from their supplies. Just a few essentials. She’d expected to support herself entirely and he had no doubt in her abilities to accomplish this. If not for her pursuers, she was capable of living indefinitely off the land.

For an Icarian technophile who’d relied on her house droids for food, clothing and vitamin c dogs
the comforts of home, Julie had cheerfully and competently embraced her life in the wilderness. Daniel never would have thought that a veemeld who epitomized the virtual world of human melding with the machines of Icaria would take quite so well to living in the harsh reality of the wilds. Not only had she fully complemented his skills and become his ideal helpmate, but she’d also been his constant companion in the heath. Was that the real reason he was chasing after her? Because without her, there was no point in living out here? What fear was driving him? It wasn’t so much fear for her welfare ~ if she was in trouble he wasn’t going to make a difference. No, it was the same old fear, the fear of losing her to the lure of that exciting technological world. Losing her to SAM. She’d never spoken about SAM, but Daniel knew she must have missed it ~ him ~ whatever. How couldn’t she have, though? She’d had SAM “living” in her head, sharing her most private thoughts for years. Ironic, Daniel pondered, how Julie could be so reclusive with people, yet so openly share herself with a machine.

After Angel chased down the rabbit jerky she was chewing on with some of her dad’s unleavened cornbread and a drink from her canteen, she abruptly wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air. “What’s that awful smell?” she asked.

Daniel sniffed too. “It’s just the Spirea. They give off a strong fragrance.”

“More like a dead animal,” Angel countered, frowning. “You need to get your nose fixed if you can’t smell that, Dad,” she said, shaking her head at him, and raised her brows for emphasis.

He shrugged and gave her a lame grin. Like her mother, her sense of smell was far superior to his. With a sigh, Daniel searched yet again for any sign of Julie having passed through here.

That was when he saw the body.

He stiffened with alarm then quickly ruled out Julie. From what he could see under the Spirea bush near the creek bed some fifty meters away, it was a man’s body. Angel sat cross-legged facing Daniel and therefore had no idea what he was trying not to look at.

“I need to pee,” he suddenly said, failing to keep his voice calm. “Don’t look.”

“I won’t,” she said with a smile of amusement. “But you better go!” she sniggered, obviously translating the distress in his voice to a sense of urgent need.

He scrambled down to the dead man’s body and, after a glance back at Angel still sitting with her back to him, Daniel bent to take a closer look. He’d been shot in the chest. Once. Had Julie done this? The process of decay was well advanced thanks to the summer heat. Flies and gnats buzzed and crawled over the rotting flesh, which gave off an incredibly offensive odor. He stumbled back, gagging. Holding his hand over his nose and mouth, Daniel scurried back to Angel.

“It’s time to go,” he said brusquely to Angel’s bewilderment. Shrugging into his heavy backpack, Daniel added. “Let’s go that way.” That way led far away from where the body lay. As they walked in solemn silence, Daniel reviewed what he’d seen. Judging from his clothes, Daniel concluded that the dead man came from Icaria recently. No doubt one of Julie’s pursuers. And she’d neatly dispatched him. She was a dead shot, after all, usually catching her prey on her first try. Was this where she’d been seized? If they got her she must have been taken by surprise, he thought, thinking of her gun and the dead man. Nevertheless, he searched as discreetly as he could for signs of further struggles.

Angel shouted excitedly from the top, “Look!” She pointed to the other side at something he could not see. Alarm spiked and clenched his heart. He quickly reminded himself that, according to Angel, Julie had been taken to Icaria, so she wouldn’t be lying there. “Hurry, Dad!” Angel shot down the other side.

“Angel, no! Wait!” he shrilled. When he crested the rise, chest heaving, he stared. Glinting in the sun with Angel stroking its smooth surface, was a skyship.

Twelve

It was over twelve years since she’d had a warm bath, Julie thought as she slid into the steaming water and shuddered with the tingling rush of awoken sensation. Unfortunately that also included her many cuts and scrapes, which stung sharply. As if the little injuries awoke the large one, her arm began to throb angrily under the bandage and the slightest movement sent a jagged shaft of intense pain splintering through her. She supposed that in actuality it was simply the mitigin wearing off, then she saw that blood and fluid had seeped through the bandage and felt a pulse of alarm. Trying to keep the arm out of the water, Julie washed her hair and body with her other hand, soaping herself in slow caressing motions, then rinsed.

She lay back in a half-daze and let memories scud in ~ memories of when she and her father stood, marveling at a sunset, perhaps for the last time before the Pols took him away for a murder he didn’t commit. Her father’s eyes had creased when he smiled and lifted his face from its usual sadness. He had been a quiet man of few words, but with an intensity that often struck her with awe. Julie recognized nature’s role in her father’s demeanor. Under the sunset’s forgiving radiance, his bronze face had glowed like a warrior poet as he sucked on his pipe. She remembered savoring the sweet scent of burning pipe tobacco and watching the plume of blue smoke curl over his shoulder. It rose, then broke up into swirling tendrils as he lectured her.

“We have much to learn in stable chaos science, Angel. Ecosystems cycle over millennia in ways we may never discern. This heath, for instance, is a complex system, poised on the edge of chaos. It has the ability to balance order and chaos in ways we have yet to comprehend. Creation and destruction are parts of the same thing, Angel. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that everything degenerates toward entropy. Yet spontaneous order exists all around us in galaxies, cells, ecosystems and human beings. We’ve miraculously managed to assemble ourselves from a primordial, chaotic, soup of chemicals.”

“Mom says God made us.”

Her father smiled thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s the same thing.”

She slipped her hand into his much larger one and rubbed against him like a cat, studying his great hand. It wasn’t the hand of an outdoorsman. Neither rough nor callused like her uncle’s, whose brown paws were seamed and cracked from the sun. Her father’s hands were pale and smooth like her mother’s, with slender fingers. They were the hands of a scientist who wrote intelligent words. Secure in his firm grip, she was convinced that her father and his words would protect her against anything . . .

More memories bubbled up in cats vitamin
a febrile mixture of garish images . . . trying to keep up with her mother as she pulled her and her sister through a sea of people and droids, then feeling her mother’s hand slip away . . . striding the glittering malls festooned with cultured parks and fragrant gardens . . . pushing her way into the crowded tube-jet . . . sitting in her dark office and laughing at SAM’s crazy jokes . . . watching in frozen anguish as her friend, Nancy, was Shamed, then feeling the disgrace of her own Shaming . . . discovering that she was Prometheus and that her own father had given her away as a child to science without asking her and damned her to Darwin disease . . . discovering that her lost sister had died of it. . . stunned by her Uncle Bobby’s suicide in the Pol Station after he was arrested for peddling dystopian literature . . . quarrelling with Frank, then shooting him out of uncontrollable rage . . .

Out of those dark swirling visions, thoughts of Daniel floated to the surface . . . When they’d first snuck out of Icaria to walk the beach of Lake Ontario, already in love but too shy to admit it . . . the time she and Daniel bathed naked in a shallow lake the first day they’d left Icaria for good. She’d bashfully undressed in front of him then took his tenderly offered hand and followed him into the chilly water. They washed each other, then, still dripping wet, they made love in the shallows ~

A brusque knock at the door jolted her out of her reverie. She jerked up with a splash and snapped her eyes open.

“You ready, Ms. Crane?” Tyers called from the other side of the washroom door.

“Yes. Right there,” she responded and pulled herself unsteadily out of the water to dry and dress. When she saw the clothes Tyers had selected for her, she frowned. He’d left her a Com-Center uniform to wear. As she felt the soft crimson fabric and brought it to her nose, inhaling its freshly laundered scent, a whole new jangle of memories scudded in like missals that knocked her off balance. She leaned back against the wall to steady herself, feeling a sudden splintering pain rip through her arm, and saw spots in front of her eyes.

Once dressed, Julie opened the door with her left hand, her old clothes tucked under that arm. Tyers stood up from the same chair she’d sat in before and his mouth twitched as he appraised her, obviously enjoying the view. She was too annoyed to blush. “Why this?” she demanded, looking from the uniform to his face. “I don’t work in your Com-Center anymore.”

“It matches the fire in your eyes,” he teased, then added, “The colour red suits you,” and used the excuse to look her over more.

She held out her soiled clothes. “I’d like these cleaned and returned to me.”

“Why?” he asked, eyeing them with distaste. He added to her slight dismay, “You won’t be needing them again.”

She brought the clothes close to her face to take in the tantalizing scent of seasoned leather. “I just . . . want them. I don’t want to argue with you ~”

“Good, considering how you like to end your arguments,” he said with a smirk. He’d obviously alluded to her shooting Frank during their quarrel in the Den so long ago. Tyers swung his arm in an arc around the room. “You were asking about the Head Pol . . . This is his office and suite.”

Yes, it had been familiar. She’d never come in through the door, always by lift. Clutching her old clothes against her chest, Julie observed that the new Head Pol had thoroughly redecorated. Gone were Kraken’s antique wooden furniture and bookshelf, his classic sculptures and paintings. They’d been replaced with modern designs, sleek black leather furniture, abstract art and stark white walls. The new Head Pol had traded the romance of regal tradition with elegant but stark reality.

“Someone’s anxious to meet you.” The smirk became more pronounced. “An old friend.”

She did a quick rundown of who she might still know in Icaria. She had no friends left here. At least not live ones. The locked door to her left opened and Julie came face to face with a ghost.

“Hi, Julie,” Frank said. He was looking very much alive for someone who should have died from Darwin eleven years ago. He was dressed in a black Pol uniform and wasn’t wearing a helmet. She thought him thinner and lankier than she’d remembered him. Frank appraised her whole body, undressing her with his eyes, glanced briefly at the clothes she clutched, then rested his gaze on her face with a smirk. That recklessly handsome face had definitely aged since she’d last seen him. He’d let his dark hair grow long and had it pulled back in a ponytail. It gave his thin face a severe quality that brought out the coldness in his sea-blue eyes and a lingering bitterness in his sardonic mouth. She thought he resembled an undernourished timber wolf. “You look great,” he said, lips tugging into a leer.

“So do you . . .” she lied and felt her voice break up and drift away in pieces. The fire that smouldered in her arm flared up into her face as though she’d just walked into a wall of flames. Then she was falling and everything faded into blackness.

Eleven

The dog shedding supplements
skyship shuddered briefly as it landed on top of one of Icaria’s high towers that rose out of the decrepit outer façade of the ancient city. Julie recognized it as the Pol Station. Of course. No surprise there. Then a realization slammed into her and her breaths seized in her chest ~ what if she’d misinterpreted their motives and this was just a simple mission on the part of the Pols to bring Julie Crane, the murderer, back to justice. Was she headed straight to a Pol Station dungeon to await execution with no chance to plead her or her family’s case? Was it possible that Burke was the only one who knew the truth about her and now he’d disappeared?

The pilot was the first to leave the ship. He opened the passenger door and waited for them, right hand resting lightly on his holstered gun.

Before disembarking, Tyers turned to her and spoke for the first time since they’d lapsed into silence at the beginning of the trip. His one question told her he knew everything. “So, did they all come back?”

She knew he meant the lower order A.I. machine voices in her head. And probably SAM, too. “Yes,” she replied, deciding that there was no reason to hide it.

Tyers simply nodded. “Shall we?” he motioned to the ship’s exit. She clamored out of her chair then felt her knees cave in under her. He was at her side instantly and steadied her. Giddy under a hot wave of nausea, she reluctantly took his arm as they stepped off the ship. Once on the platform, she slid from his grasp and walked stiffly on her own behind Raymond to the door leading from the roof. Raymond stopped at the door. Tyers held his card in front of the I.D. plate and stood aside as the door opened for Julie to step inside. As she did he tilted his head and asked, “You’ve demonstrated quite clearly that you’re the independent type, but what was it you were doing, splintering off from your family?”

Taken off guard, Julie stammered as she passed him through the doorway, avoiding his eyes, “I just needed some time to myself.”

“Ah,” he nodded, raising a brow, following her inside with Raymond behind them. “A domestic dispute.”

“You might say,” she said in a hollow voice and looked away. Let him think that. Perhaps he wasn’t so far off the mark, she considered, thinking of Daniel’s likely reaction to what she’d done.

“Yeah, I’d heard that about you, too,” Tyers said with a slick grin. “Bit of a loner, eh? Never even joined the veemeld association, your own kind.”

Hard when you’re one-of-a-kind, she bit out the thought. Even the other veemelds would have thought of her as a freak back then.

“At any rate,” he went on, leading her down the hall, “you made it easier for us to retrieve you.” That was the idea, she thought sardonically. “If your mate is anything like you,” he blithely continued, “we’d have needed reinforcements.”

No mention of Angel. That was good, she decided, and turned her attention to her surroundings. Upon entering the building, she’d instantly noticed the change in the air quality and recognized the stale smell of re-circulated, vented air. The building seemed alive with the droning of machines and technology. She didn’t remember the halls being so narrow and cramped. She was struck by their bright cleanliness and felt self-conscious walking through them in her dirty hiking shoes. She must look filthy and she knew she stank because she hadn’t bathed in days and had hiked hard in the heat of summer.

Tyers led her to a small room. There was nothing in it save a second door, a wall vee-com and a swivel chair. They stood in the room as though waiting for something or someone. Julie noticed Tyers tapping his foot nervously. Within moments the far door opened and a slim but muscular man with a dour face and stern mouth strode in as if he owned the place. His head was shaven and he wore a green Enviro-Center uniform like Tyers. He looked uncomfortably familiar.

Ignoring Tyers for the subordinate he was, the man fixed sharp eyes on Julie. He glared at her with such fierce hatred she almost recoiled and wondered what she’d done to warrant such malevolence. She didn’t know him. Or did she? The man nodded, looking her over like merchandise, as if confirming his loathing with what he saw.

“Well, well,” he said in a basso voice that carried a tone of contempt. “So this is the legendary Julie Crane.” Even though he was looking directly at her, he’d made it clear in every way that he was not addressing her, as though she was a dumb animal.

Julie glanced down at herself and felt her face smolder. Her leather shorts and faded blouse were stained and torn. She and her clothes stank from nervous sweat. Her nails were chipped and filthy, her legs and arms smeared with soil and blood, her boots scuffed and caked in dirt. Her hair, at the best of times a mess, was a shocking matt that hung like string over her eyes and stuck out in all directions. She knew she looked like a wild animal, with a dirty face browned from the sun. No, not too impressive, she supposed, especially for someone who was trying to gain concessions for her family. But there was more to his hatred . . .

“The notorious Julie Crane,” he repeated as if to himself and pushed out his lips in sober thoughts. “The woman who likes to shoot people.” He paused, raised his chin and sneered, “The woman who single handedly caused the worst epidemic humankind has known, assassinated the Head Pol and sent the whole Pol force running in circles like city-fools chasing a fox in a forest.”

The man then turned toward the door through which he’d entered, dismissing her from his attention as though she was no longer in the room. At least now she knew her status in Icaria and fiercely stomped down on the anxiety pulsing up her throat. So, they were pinning the whole Darwin plague on her too. Why not? She’d given them the means, revealing herself as Prometheus with that info-cube. Now she knew what Burke had done with it, but she was tired and hungry and out of patience. “Am I under arrest? Why have you brought me here?”

The man halted at the door. “Get her cleaned up,” he said, not bothering to look back. “She looks and stinks like an animal.” He flicked a hand. “Use Suite One.”

Julie noticed the surprise in Tyer’s face. She drew what comfort she could from the man’s order. For whatever else it meant, at least she knew she wasn’t going straight to a dungeon and execution. Whatever they had in mind for her entailed some level of presentation.

“Then take her to the Pielou Med-Center for processing,” the man added and disappeared through the door that had just irised open.

That sounded less promising, Julie thought. The door hissed shut and she felt Tyers relax. The man obviously intimidated Tyers also. She bridled in her despair with a question. “Who was that?”

Tyers turned to her with an even look. “Brian Dykstra.”

She swallowed. “A relative of the previous Chief of Secret Pols?” Julie had been instrumental in John Dykstra’s arrest and incarceration twelve years ago. Not only had her model identified him as a Dystopian, but her research had also uncovered his involvement in criminal activities for Gaia.

“The son,” Tyers responded.

Julie held back a grimace. John Dykstra had hated veemelds with a passion, especially her. So, apparently, did his son. He had good reason, she acknowledged ~ she’d put his father in jail. “Your boss?” she asked, projecting a false calm in her voice.

Tyers scowled. “Yes.”

“And he answers to the Head Pol, I guess.”

“All in good time,” he said with a sneer. She was fishing but he didn’t take the bait. He turned to the door and she followed him out. Who’d replaced the dead Kraken? Who was the Head Pol now? She didn’t like the sound of Dykstra’s command to “process” her. What did he mean by that? Was Gaia still running everything, including the Circle and Icaria-5’s mayor? Twelve years ago Julie’s sleuthing had uncovered Gaia’s blackmailing of virtually every member of that planetary governing body, but it seemed as though that information, like other parts of her info-cube, had never made it out of Burke’s office. Julie shuddered as she thought of the DP, the place Gaia had had in mind for her once she’d discovered Julie’s lack of cooperation. No one ever left the DP, at least not in one piece.

There was one sure way to find out the truth, she thought, as Tyers led her out of the room back into the hallway where Raymond waited, but she stifled the urge to communicate with SAM again. SAM wasn’t SAM anymore. She wasn’t sure what her A.I. friend had become, now that he’d joined with Darwin’s virus, Proteus, and she wasn’t in a hurry to find out. Her strange, recurring nightmare flickered back and she felt her stomach twist. A disturbing idea that had been simmering in her mind surfaced briefly: that Proteus was behind the dream. That Proteus was sentient and messing with her psyche. The thought was too terrifying and she shoved it to the back of her mind again.

Tyers stopped at another door. When he opened it and motioned for her to enter past him, Julie saw that it was a large, fully furnished suite. Suite One. It looked oddly familiar. A swift appraisal revealed a set of glass doors leading to a patio, bathed in evening sunshine, two other closed doors and a set of doors for a lift. The room was elegantly furnished with comfortable chairs, a sofa and table, vee-com-equipped desk and artwork.

Tyers followed her into the room with a smirk. “Don’t bother with either that door or the lift,” he said. “They’re locked. There’s a bathtub in the washroom, there.” He pointed to the third door. “I suggest you clean up and change. I’ll have some clothes sent up via the washroom chute.” He moved back to the hall door. “I’ll be back in an hour to take you to the Med-Center to heal that arm and your other injuries.” He closed the door and she heard the click of the lock.

Left alone for the first time since she’d been apprehended, Julie gave in to emotional exhaustion and dropped into a plush chair. She closed her eyes and exhaled, long and slow. How was she going to convince these people to leave her and her family alone? Was she being held? And by whom? The success of her “mission” depended on the answers to these questions and she was now having her first major misgivings. In good time, Tyers had said. Yes, all in good time . . .

Swallowing down her rising confusion and despair, she refused to admit to having regrets. A part of her had felt inexplicable longing to return here and now that she was back, it felt all wrong. The city felt nothing like she’d expected. Instead of evoking warm familiar feelings, it felt like a foreign and eerie place from a discarded dimension of her existence. She remembered how she used to find the constant thrumming of the environmental system soothing. Now it only added to the discomfort she was feeling.

Even the machine voices in her mind annoyed her. They chattered in her head like a room full of strangers telling secrets she couldn’t understand and she kept shaking her head as if that would make them go away. Of course it didn’t. Then there was SAM, the one thing she’d openly looked forward to. Once her best friend, SAM was now a stranger to her. She felt betrayed somehow; and very lonely. She missed Daniel and Angel.

Blinking back tears, she pushed herself from the comfortable seat and wandered to the patio doors. They were locked, of course. She leaned her forehead against the glass and looked out onto the stark patio, unable to see beyond its walls to the heath. Her gaze rested on the evening sky, now inflamed with the blushing shades of red and ochre, and she imagined the heady fragrance of sweet bog and pepper and the rowdy clamoring of birds that rose at this time of the day.

After confirming that the other door and lift were indeed secured, she shuffled to the door Tyers had suggested. It opened into a spacious bathroom, complete with large bathtub, toilet and separate shower. Three of the walls were alive with the sights, smells and sounds of lush jungle vegetation ~ the latest in holo-art, she supposed. There was a second door but it wouldn’t budge. It probably led to the mystery room behind the locked door in the living room.

She started the water then gingerly undressed, wincing as pain shot through her arm. She dropped her filthy bloodstained clothes on the floor and stood watching the tub fill with churning water through a haze of thoughts.

As the laminar flow spilled into riotous tendrils only to find a uniform pattern of turbulence, she was once again reminded of her father and chaos theory. Stable chaos, he’d insisted, permeated everything and everyone. Like fractals of a larger interconnected universe, each person had his or her own cycle of creative destruction to experience before merging into a greater community of consciousness. Where was she in that cycle? Would she be as serene when it was her time like her father was the day the Pols took him?

Ten

Angel was pulling his arm. “Dad, they took Mom!”

“What?” He turned to hartz cat vitamins
his distressed daughter from his workbench. Lately, she looked more like a scamp than a young girl, taken to wandering off to explore while he worked silently on projects with little meaning.

“I couldn’t talk to her,” she continued, her words rushing out like a turbulent brook, “because the insects played interference.”

“The insects what?” She wasn’t making any sense, he thought, realizing he was annoyed that she’d brought up her mother. He was trying his hardest, without much success, to forget her. Since Julie left them over a week ago, he’d sadly accepted that he’d probably never see her again and the loss opened up a huge, pulsing wound. The wound was healing, at least going numb, and here was Angel opening it up again.

“Got in the way,” she explained. “They got in the way.”

Daniel frowned, confused as well as annoyed. “But I thought the insect noises carried your voices, let you talk to one another.”

“Except they got too loud. As if they didn’t want me to hear Mom.”

“That’s—” ridiculous, he silently added to himself. She was implying that the virus had a mind of its own. He dismissed the thought as absurd, just a child’s impression, and exhaled with impatience. “Who, Angel? Who took her?”

“I don’t know. But they’re taking her back to Icaria,” she continued, dancing from one foot to the other in nervous agitation.

Icaria, he thought, looking off into infinity. Icaria ~ the last place he ever wanted to be, but the place Julie had never stopped longing for. Although they’d never discussed it, he knew of her strange yearning to return. There were a lot of things she never discussed with him, he thought. A lot that she kept secluded, close to her heart. Her family, for instance, and her father particularly. Daniel had met Bobby, her eccentric uncle, her only living relative at the time. After the cypols took her and tagged her a veemeld, useful to the outer-city, she’d lived with Bobby for a while until the DIC offered her a high-end job with high-end pay.

Bobby was a crusty old hermit and didn’t like attachments, but he had a tender spot for Julie and they’d become very close. When her ex-boyfriend arrested Bobby and her uncle died while in custody at the Pol Station, it hurt her deeply. Daniel supposed maybe that was exactly what that Pol had in mind when he’d arrested Bobby: to hurt Julie. Revenge for leaving him ~ and loving another. Only days earlier Langor had spotted her with Daniel and had hurled an insult, one that had convinced her to reveal her identity to Daniel. The Pol had done his work: Daniel left her in disgust. It was, ironically Langor’s further action ~ Bobby’s arrest and incarceration in the Pol Station ~ that brought Daniel and Julie together again.

Of her mother, Daniel knew only a little from the hushed arguments between Julie and her little sister when they techno-slummed with him in the inner city. Despite Julie’s defensive remonstrations, her sister had insisted that their mother was a drunk and had deliberately let go of them in the crowd that day that they’d lost her. For years Julie continued to look for their mother. They never found her and had to resort to living in the streets.

Then her sister was snatched by a cypol and Julie left Daniel to look for her. Julie had finally tracked her down: she’d died in a foster home, but Julie had refused to discuss the details with him. Of Julie’s father, Daniel knew nothing, except that he’d been arrested for a double murder and had left Julie, her sister and mother destitute. Julie had adopted the nickname he’d given her when she was a child: Angel.

Julie so fiercely locked away that part of herself, but he knew it was there. He’d caught glimpses of it from time to time during their twelve years together. Usually it boiled to the surface during arguments, the kind they used to have during their early years outside.

It often began with some innocent remark on his part, followed by a surprisingly biting response from her then a bark of rebuke from him to which she would take great exception and throw him a monosyllabic word like “fine.” He’d learned to dread such a response for what it was: a smoldering rage building inside her. Eventually he recognized ~ always too late ~ that he’d unwittingly touched upon a close-guarded fear or pain that erupted in a stunning explosion of emotion that she just as quickly subdued and tucked away, leaving him dazed, as though he’d just slammed head-first into a tree.

He never understood Julie’s obsession with Icaria. It should have been the last place she wanted to be. They’d barely gotten away with their lives. Memories of that last day in Icaria still strobed through him like a fibrillating heart. He’d already left her by then, because she’d deceived him by concealing who and what she was, but then she got in that row with Langor for arresting her uncle and she accidentally killed Langor’s partner. Someone then tampered with the vids, cleverly skewing her actions into those of an assassin and suddenly the whole Pol force was chasing her and only Daniel could help her.

He found her huddled and shivering in a grimy lower-level hall, sobbing uncontrollably, overcome with despair and completely undone. He’d never seen her that way before ~ she’d always been the quiet and stalwart inspiration of their techno-slummer group ~ and that momentary breakdown alone had shocked him into feeling immense compassion for her. He took charge, for once, and led Julie to the inner city ~ straight into an ambush by Pols, lead by a Secret Pol who wanted her info-cube, and wanted her dead. She and Daniel only slipped away because a techno-slummer she’d mothered recognized Julie and the gathering mob did the rest.

Daniel had never intended to join her: he’d promised himself that he would help her escape outside, where she could eke out a living on her own . . . but as they said their good-byes, both miserable and lonely, something snapped inside of him and he knew he couldn’t live without her. He had never regretted coming out here with her, but he sometimes wondered whether he really knew his wife . . . and whether she had ever really been happy.

Angel’s glum voice filtered through his miserable thoughts: “ . . . and it’s because of me that she left.”

Startled, Daniel studied his daughter for several heartbeats and finally realized that she blamed herself for her mother’s departure. He berated himself for not noticing before. Angel had probably been beating herself up this whole time, but he’d been too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice just how much his own grieving daughter was hurting from misplaced guilt. He’d spent many hours picturing Julie back in Icaria, striding with confidence in that blazing tunic that looked so good on her and brought out her forest-green eyes. He saw her lured back into the technological paradise to which she was so accustomed and possessed such prowess. He saw her laughing with her A.I.-friend, SAM. And he felt hopeless ~ so hopeless he hadn’t recognized the quiet agony his daughter was suffering.

Daniel leaned close to Angel and took her hand. “Sweetheart, it’s not because of you . . . well . . .” he trailed. That wasn’t strictly true either.

“I was so mean to her. She got mad at me and I shouted at her and didn’t listen. We’ve been arguing so much. I can’t do anything right ~”

“Now hold on there, Angel.” He squeezed her hand for emphasis. How mother and daughter resembled one another in temper, he thought. “Your mother loves you more than anything. She left because of you but not because of anything you did. She left to protect you.”

“Well, we have to go after her! Now!” Angel shook out of his grasp, agitated.

Daniel stiffened at the thought. Then he rested his hands on her shoulders to calm her. “Listen, Angel, that would undermine what your mother just did. She left to lure them away from us ~ from you. She made it clear from the way she left that she didn’t want us to follow her. If we did, we’d make her sacrifice meaningless.”

“I don’t care!” she said hotly.

“Icaria’s 500 kilometers away. It’s at least three weeks, more like two months, just to get there. By then she could be ~” he cut himself off but finished the thought in his head: she could be dead . . . or worse.

“All the more reason to go NOW!”

He slumped in his chair, meeting the blazing eyes of his fierce little daughter. He’d just started getting used to the idea of losing Julie again ~ maybe forever this time. Well, no, he’d never get used to it; there would always be a gnawing empty ache inside him where she belonged. But he’d visualized a life without her. Now Angel wanted him to go on some rescue mission to save Julie who likely didn’t want ~ or need ~ to be saved, in a place where he no longer belonged.

“They hurt her, Dad,” Angel finally said in a low voice. “I felt her pain. I heard her mind scream.”

Swallowing hard, he put an arm around Angel and squeezed her tight to him. He felt her anguish ooze into him like blood from one cut to another. He understood Julie’s compulsion to save others. Her history of abuse and abandonment had taught her to be fiercely self-reliant but also to care for others less fortunate than her. He’d let self-centered and selfish anger rule his adolescence. While he lay passed out in self-pity in a dark alley, covered in his own vomit from drinking tub-jet fuel, Julie had swept in like a warm ocean tide, raised his techno-slummer group out of the gutter of despair, fed them with love and hope and set them on the shores of self-sufficiency. She was his valiant hero and he loved her. Then she deserted him to go save her sister, who’d been taken by a cypol. But instead of finding Diana, Julie was taken to the outer-city for her useful abilities as a veemeld. Only years later she found her sister: she’d died of Darwin Disease in a foster home.

Now Julie had left him again ~ but this time to save her daughter, and maybe make peace with a place that no longer cared for her. Was that what drew her there? Was it her perception of unfinished business? She’d inadvertently started the Darwin plague. He recalled the time he found her in the lower levels when he’d gone looking to rescue her, and she’d refused to go with him. She still intended to deliver into trustworthy hands the info-cube that held the answers to Darwin. It was only when Pols caught up to them and opened fire, that she relented. She’d finally left the cube with Frank, the only Pol she could trust because he wasn’t a Secret Pol. Daniel had never asked Aard about the state of Darwin in Icaria, and he knew Julie hadn’t either. Was she afraid of what the place might have become? Was she still blaming herself?

Now his beloved wife was hurt and needed him again . . .

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Angel patted his hand with an optimistic smile. “We’ll find her and bring her back.”

Nine

It took her a organic dog vitamins
while to realize that the thunder in her head came mostly from outside. Some motor was pulsing to the rhythm of the sharp pain that resonated through her head. Her whole body ached, she felt sick to her stomach and her arm smoldered with a brooding pain where the laser shot had burned her. She cautiously opened her eyes and when her vision cleared she saw that she was slumped in a curled position in a back passenger seat of a skyship. A pilot in front of her was doing diagnostics on the ship and the blue-haired man sat next to her, regarding her with a faint smile.

“Ah, welcome to the living again, Ms. Crane.”

She straightened up and winced from the painful jolt in her right arm. “Who are you?” She noticed that the wound in her arm had been bandaged.

“Inquisitive. Good. You must be feeling better. Don’t worry about the arm. Raymond treated it topically with mitigin and gave you some ambrosia to ease the pain.” That explained her nausea, she thought ~ Icaria’s drugs had always made her sick. “But we’ll soon get you to a Med-Center where they’ll treat it properly and clean you up. I’m Greg Tyers.”

The ship shuddered, beginning its ascent. Julie looked outside and caught a glimpse of Aard lying in a heap. She watched his dark corpse recede into the vast heath. Seen from this vantage point, the heath’s brilliant purple and green patchwork blazed with breathtaking beauty on either side of the widening river with its thousands of islands and the lake beyond. Then she could no longer make out Aard’s body from the heath’s multi-coloured quilt-work.

As the skyship skirted along the shore of Lake Ontario, Julie gazed to the north. Like pointillist paintings, the ancient remains of the old roads and buildings revealed themselves from the air in an abstract network of light green lines and shapes. The history of human habitation spoke in subtle whispers of shade and texture.

Just as with humankind’s many artifacts, the heath would reclaim Aard into its fractal fabric of colour and filigree, while she hurtled toward the dark and sterile halls of Icaria. She couldn’t help feeling that her journey ~ and her end ~ lay in those dark halls, not in the heath below, where her sweet child was born and belonged. Not me, thought Julie. It seemed her own destiny lay along a path different from Angel’s or Daniel’s. A darker path. She’d cheated destiny, after all. She’d fled and raised a beautiful child in nature’s wilderness. Now the fate she’d forged for herself over twelve years ago when she’d discovered who and what she was had caught up to her at last and was drawing her back into the dark place.

Within minutes the ship was soaring southwest over the vast lake and Julie stole a glance at Tyers, seated beside her. In contrast to her tattered leather shorts, rumpled shirt and her sweaty body, dirty and rough with abrasions and cuts. Tyers looked groomed in his freshly-laundered Enviro-Center uniform and his creamy complexion that radiated with nuyu treatments. He sat upright, manicured hands folded over his lap, and gazed with detached interest at the lake below. He looked about her age, in his thirties, with a square, unexceptional face. A pleasant kind of face with unobtrusive features one never remembered ~ the kind that dangerously blended into a crowd.

Did Tyers work for Gaia or was he a hired assassin of some new government faction that had subverted her? Time had a way of changing players; yet somehow the game stayed remarkably the same. Pol renegades. Dystopians . . . Did these dissidents still exist or had others subverted them in turn? She supposed that hinged on what Burke had done with her info-cube and what Darwin was presently doing to Icaria. Julie thought of the irony of Gaia’s Secret Pols, her Gestapo that secretly reported to her while Mayor Burke and his Head Pol thought they were running the show. The chief of Secret Pols, in turn, kept his own agenda hidden from Gaia: the trickster tricked, subverted by her own rebel unit. Dykstra’s agenda ran counter to Gaia’s who wanted to empower veemelds under her influence; he just wanted to eradicate them. It was all such a tangled web.

When Julie first met Gaia at Kraken’s fateful birthday party, she was mesmerized and strangely drawn to the captivating woman, as if to a beautiful but deeply disturbing piece of art. Gaia had brought up the grizzly example of vampire bats’ mutual sharing of blood to illustrate the need for reciprocity in Icaria and to reprimand Julie for her reckless and uncooperative behavior. Julie had no idea until later of Gaia’s role in her own fate as Prometheus because she hadn’t yet discovered that she was Prometheus. Was Gaia behind this current abduction?

Julie looked Tyers directly in the eyes. “So, are you with the group who wants me alive or the one that wants me dead?” she demanded, realizing as she did how naïve she sounded. No matter, she didn’t have time to be delicate about the situation.

He smiled with what looked to her like sardonic amusement. “You don’t mince words, do you?” he said. “I’d heard that about you. Something about razzing the Shame Court judges . . .” No mistaking the sneer now.

He would bring up her awful Shame Court appearance for tripping a Pol twelve years ago, she thought with a glower. And what else had he heard? That she had a gifted daughter? “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You needn’t be concerned, Ms. Crane,” he said in an assuring tone that sounded condescending. “Our intention isn’t to harm you.”

“Could have fooled me,” she said with open sarcasm, glancing at her injured arm, and temper flaring. “Like your intention not to harm Aard?”

“Regrettably, we had to suppress you somehow,” he said, lips curling with a little more amusement than she cared for. “You didn’t give us much choice, attacking us like that.” He raised a hand and flicked it. “You should count yourself lucky that it was us or you’d be dead now. Raymond’s a crack shot. He only meant to slow you down. If he meant to kill you, believe me, you’d be dead now. As for your friend, we found him that way just before we caught up with you.”

He was lying, she thought. She could see it in his cloyingly sweet smile of reassurance and that overly earnest voice he’d adopted. “Sure,” she said not hiding her disgust and turned to stare pointedly out at the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Strange, for instance, how Tyers had come to haul her back to Icaria right on the heels of that assassin. Julie didn’t believe in coincidence.

They remained silent for the remainder of the journey. Tyers settled back in his seat and donned his vee set while Julie kept her eyes riveted on the glittering lake and the rough heath scudding past her. She saw her past and future flowing on a collision course and it seemed that the greater distance they put between them and her former home, the more keenly she felt those contented years in the heath dissolve before her. But it was tempered by a mixture of relief for the family she’d left behind. If they knew about Angel, they certainly weren’t pursuing her . . . yet. She and Daniel were safe for now. If they could stay that way for a little while longer until she succeeded in securing them permanent safety . . .

Suddenly Julie thought to try reaching her daughter with her mind. Angel? It’s Mom. I’m okay . . . The chittering grew animated with a grainy sound. Can you hear me, sweetheart? She shook her head to try to clear the static. Go away. Let me hear my daughter! As if in response, the virus twitters only increased. Julie slumped in her chair. It was as though the virus refused to carry her message . . .

An hour later she could make out the glimmering towers of Icaria-5 to the northwest and ran her teeth absently over her lower lip. It was a beautiful sight, she conceded with growing excitement. The enclosed city had sprung up literally from beneath the ancient surface city. Icaria had evolved from Toronto’s extensive underground malls, connected to its transportation system, then burst like a phoenix out of the abandoned outer city, glass towers reaching for Heaven. She’d had a lot of time to think of what her return here meant to both her and to the family she’d left behind. Hopefully, she could fulfill both her needs ~ getting concessions for her family ~ and Icaria’s need ~ whatever that was ~ then return home to the heath. There lay the quandary. Depending on what Icaria wanted with her, it was also possible that those needs were mutually exclusive; in which case, she was ready to abort her mission and flee, knowing that she’d once again be condemning herself to a fugitive’s existence, this time never to see her family again.

Over a decade ago, the Pols of Icaria had chased her out of Icaria for a murder she hadn’t committed. Now she was returning there.

She wondered if Darwin had removed more than half of the population, as predicted. Funny how she’d never asked Aard, who used to travel to Icaria at least twice a year. Perhaps she didn’t really want to know. And what about the veemeld community? Had they finally consolidated and become a power to contend with? Or had they remained the same disparate and disorganized group of individuals they were when she left? She remembered how Zane, obviously desperate for members, had tried to lure her into joining their organization. And the A.I. community? What about SAM? Just before her departure from Icaria, SAM had talked about his ambitions for an “A.I.-community”. Did he have friends now? She wanted desperately to ask Tyers. She was certain that he had all the answers, but she refused to speak to him and instead let her curiosity rage inside.

As they approached the high towers, Julie felt her breathing escalate. This was where Icaria’s machine voices had faded away when she’d left. Would they . . .?

Abruptly the machine voices of Icaria-5 washed in her mind as if on an incoming tidal surge and she inhaled sharply. She’d initially thought that they would burst in, but, perhaps because she’d anticipated them, it felt more like walking from an empty hallway into a crowded room.

She caught Tyers watching her carefully and wondered if he knew about her strange abilities. Of course he did. It was obvious that she was being brought back because of those very abilities, though for what exact purpose she could only guess. Ignoring him, she felt her heart slamming as she prepared to veemeld. She knew she was within SAM’s range if the machines of Icaria were already talking to her. Would she remember how? Was SAM even there? Or had they dismantled him? Or had Zane, who’d inherited SAM as his new veemeld partner, irreparably changed SAM’s personality? Only one way to find out. She plunged in: Hey, SAM . . . It’s me . . . Julie . . . your . . . well, hi . . .

[Hey, Julie. Welcome home . . .]

SAM sounded strange. Different. His gentle voice resonated like a cool rippling wave. Julie didn’t care. She felt a smile blossoming on her face. SAM! You’re there!

[Yes, we are. We’ve been expecting you.]

We? She killed the smile and felt her stomach twist with a dark dread.

[We are joined. Proteus and SAM.]

Julie realized that she was staring wide-eyed at Tyers who was looking directly at her with intense interest.

Eight

Julie walks SAM’s cool crystal matrix with a vitamin supplements for dogs
disquiet she is unaccustomed to feeling here. She can’t find SAM. Abruptly the glittering walkway swells into a fetid-smelling hollow and Julie knows she will see the dark figure again. Moving mechanically against her will, she rounds the corner and sees the dark figure. The smell of decay overpowers her. The figure beckons her. She recoils, resisting the force pushing her closer to the figure. Feet skidding, she slides forward. Where’s SAM? What have you done with him? she demands, trying to hide her rising panic.

[SAM is with us, a part of us now. Soon you will be. You must join us also . . . It is time to return . . .]

NO ~

Julie jolted awake to the cacophony of chirping in her head, her danger sense flaring. She shook the sweaty hair out of her eyes and threw a searching glance around her in the pre-dawn glow. She saw nothing in her immediate vicinity, but something had woken her. A noise perhaps. She slid out of the sheet, hastily dressed and slipped the gun beneath her shirt in the small of her back then pulled on her hiking boots and threw things in her pack. As she slung the backpack over her shoulders, she flinched at the sound and knew one like it had initially roused her: a laser blast. To the northeast.

Heart slamming, she sprinted in a semi-crouch up a rise toward the east. When she crested the hill and peered over to the other side, she saw a shape, sprawled on the ground below, midway down a scree slope across from her ~ it was Aard! After a darting glance to ensure no obvious danger presented itself, she scrambled down the other side of the hill and up the scree slope to his side.

His shirt was soaked in blood that issued from a dark tear. She crouched close to his head. “Aard, who did this to you?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. She heard his breaths rattling in his throat. Someone had shot him in the chest. He blinked up at her and tried to point with the gun still clutched in his shaking hand. After a glance in the direction he was pointing and seeing nothing, she patted his shoulder and made to get up. “I’ll get help ~”

“No!” He clutched her arm. “No time,” he choked out the words. “Victor Burke hired me to protect you. But things have changed in Icaria ~ Burke’s no longer mayor. He disappeared. I came to warn you ~ his replacement knows you’re out here.” He gasped in a breath. “So do those who want you dead.”

“Terrific,” she muttered. A dozen years ago it was the Dystopians who wanted her dead, not to mention Icaria’s entire Pol force once she’d been accused of murder and sedition. The Dystopians wanted to prevent her from getting her incriminating info-cube to the Head Pol. What they didn’t know was that her info-cube also held the key to Darwin’s creation and the possible answer to its cure in addition to Gaia’s pernicious conspiracy to reshape Icaria.

She knew Frank had delivered the cube to Burke. What had Burke done with it? Had the Circle removed Gaia? Given the present circumstances, it seemed unlikely and Julie was no doubt still considered a murderer.

“Something happened,” Aard continued in gasps. “Burke’s replacement ordered you hauled in, which made the others desperate to kill you. They kept sending more assassins. I took care of two of them.” So he had been shadowing her, after all. She’d guessed right; Aard had been picking them off her back. He’d saved her life several times already. Aard forced gurgling breaths in and out. “I got the one at the creek.” Julie felt her face warm briefly at the thought of Aard watching her bathing naked. He inhaled sharply then choked out, “. . . but his partner got me . . .”

“Oh, Aard,” she murmured sadly and gripped her lower lip with her teeth.

Aard clenched her arm and his eyes blazed like the sparks of a dying fire. “Julie, they want to kill you,” he forced the words out in halting breaths. “You’ve got to run. I can’t keep them away anymore.” The fire in his eyes was fading. “I failed.”

She swallowed and had to ask: “Aard, do they know about Angel? Who ~ what ~ she is?”

“We didn’t tell anyone,” he said, drawing in ragged breaths. “But they might know from their own spies. I’m sorry ~” he strangled out the last words.

“Aard, no. Don’t be. I want you to know that ~”

She didn’t get a chance to finish. The chirping in her head spiked and she swung around just in time to catch the glint and to jerk out of the line of fire. Missing her by millimeters, the silent burst of laser fire hit Aard in the chest. He gasped and shuddered violently, then lay still. Julie bolted to the cover of a nearby boulder, realizing that it must be a Secret Pol ~ a Dystopian ~ hunting her. Those had definitely been silent laser pistol shots, standard Secret Pol issue.

The shots had come from the top of the scree slope behind a large boulder. She thought she made out a head poking out of the dark boulder silhouetted against the blood-red sky. Pols were typically dead shots, but she still had one advantage over him ~ she knew this terrain far better than her pursuer did. Aard had also shown her a few tricks over the years.

Julie slipped off her backpack, then threw a last glance at Aard’s crumpled form before scrambling out from behind her rock shelter and pounding down the steep valley slope. The ground spit rocks around her from wide laser shots. The shots soon ceased as the man abandoned his vantage point to give chase.

Ditching silence for speed, Julie crashed through Spirea and willow shrubs and felt branches and leaves slap her bare arms and legs. With some satisfaction she heard the thuds and grunts of her predator’s awkward descent into the gully. City boy.

Julie led the assassin down the scree to a small winding ravine of a dried up creek. Once she heard him stumbling along the cobbles twenty meters behind her, she picked up several mid-sized water-worn rocks and ducked behind a thicket of Spirea and sweet-gale. Inhaling their pungent sweet aroma, she watched him pass her with awkward steps. She flanked him silently and smiled grimly. Then she pulled out her sling, tucked a rock in the pouch and, taking careful aim, sent the rock hurtling. It hit him on the back of the head with a sickening thud. He stumbled forward and fell but quickly scrambled up and spun around, weapon tracking toward her.

She inhaled sharply when she saw his face. It was the first time she got a good look at him. His shaven head and face were a monstrous tangle of scars and stubble. His crooked nose had obviously been broken at least once. One eye drooped as scar tissue pulled it down. Some new breed of killer, she wondered and reached for the small of her back.

He touched his head where the rock had struck him and brought his hand in front of him to see blood. He’d already spotted her standing in the bushes and now smiled with malice. “Thought a rock would do it, huh? Let’s see you do magic out here, veemeld, where you can’t use your A.I.-lover,” he spat out. “Die, bitch!”

Hand concealed in the bush, Julie pulled the trigger of Aard’s old gun a split second before the Pol did. The laser squealed and he jerked back. He stared at her in disbelief then toppled.

Shaking with fear and rage, Julie stepped out of the bush and stood over the dead man. She’d shot him in the heart. “No magic. Just a gun,” she said.

She forced herself to bend down and search him for identification then abandoned the grizzly task. He’d already identified himself as a veemeld-hater. Probably a Secret Pol. Had nothing changed in Icaria?

A swift glance confirmed that the man’s boot tread matched the prints she’d seen. Julie replaced Aard’s gun in her makeshift holster and grabbed the dead man’s weapon, a Secret Pol-issue silent laser pistol, and tucked it beneath her cinched-in belt. Then, grimacing with effort, Julie dragged the body to the bushes.

It was only as she regarded the crumpled form lying in an unnatural position in the bush, that she fully acknowledged what she’d just done ~ intentionally killed a man. She stared at the body and hugged her arms around her waist, feeling the air shiver through her lungs. It had started again. Would it ever end? That awful foreboding she’d felt lately of an imminent collision between past and future made her shake. How could she protect her cherished daughter and husband from this? Would she ever see them again?

Leaving the dead man behind, Julie sprinted up the dried creek bed back to the scree slope where she’d found Aard. Her assailant must have had a vehicle. She was going to find it, she thought as she scrambled up the steep ravine to retrieve her backpack. She was almost to Aard’s body when ~

Mom?

Julie jerked to a stop. Her chirping sounds warbled as if tuning to the transmission. Angel?

I didn’t mean what I said. Angel’s voice was edged with pain. Please come back.

Julie dropped into a cross-legged sit on the talus. Oh, honey. I didn’t leave because I was mad at you . . . I . . .

The chirping abruptly changed to a staccato grating like sheet metal ripping. Not the usual spike of danger. Just major interference. Julie couldn’t help grimacing with the effort of hearing her daughter through the fierce static that hurt her ears.

Please come home . . .

I can’t, darling. Not yet. Julie glanced down at the gun she’d taken from the man she’d just killed. Her nose flared as she tried to keep her composure. The Icarians are after me right now, sweet pea. She swallowed convulsively and brought a hand to her mouth. Look after Daddy for me, will you? Until I come back? The static became overwhelming. She couldn’t be sure Angel had heard her. I love you, Angel. Her throat closed and she felt her eyes heat with tears. Tell Dad that I love him . . . Angel?

There was no answer and soon the insect wail subsided to its normal trill. Julie dropped the gun, leaned her elbows on her knees and then cradled her head in her hands. Running her fingers into her matted hair, she let her tears flow. The chirping in her head spiked. She fisted away her tears then grabbed the dead man’s gun and leaped into a crouch, eyes roaming the slope. The sun was breaking over the horizon, firing the red sky with bold brilliance. There . . . on its highest point. Of course, her hunter had a friend. She caught a glint from a weapon and saw him, silhouetted against glittering sunlight.

She didn’t hesitate this time. Her shot missed and he returned fire.

Her right upper arm exploded in a blaze of pain. The next thing she knew she was sliding uncontrollably down the slope, smashing into jagged rocks on the way down. She heard the pistol that must have flown from her hand clatter far from her. Had she cried out? When she finally came to a stop on the dry creek bed, she pushed herself up with trembling hands and shook her head to clear it.

The nervous chirping spiked. She dropped on one knee and scanned for her assailant. He’d already moved off the slope top. Nauseous with the shooting pain in her arm, she looked at it and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her stomach twisted in alarm at the site of the large burn that had angrily carved through muscle. Shiny blisters and black flakes of burnt flesh boiled up and wept plasma and dirt. Fighting the urge to throw up, Julie scrambled unsteadily to her feet to bolt for cover.

“You’ve led us quite a chase,” said a calm voice close to her. “No need to run anymore, Ms. Crane.”

She spun toward the voice, squinting at the sun, and whipped out Aard’s weapon from her back holster. She didn’t get very far with it. Something hit the back of her head. The pain arced and shafts of brilliant light lanced the image of a man with tidy blue hair looking at her with an amused smile. The last thing she saw as the ground rushed toward her were several size-nine, freshly made boot prints. Then the darkness took her.

Seven

As she crested a ridge above a stunning vista of the river valley below, Julie stopped to wipe the sweat that was dripping into her eyes and took in the view of the swollen river, lined with a thick canopy of trees and shrubs. The river had widened considerably here and was dotted with numerous islands. SAM, her A.I., had once told her that around 700 million years ago this whole area was a large mountain system that had eroded down over millennia. All that remained were the harder Precambrian rocks scattered as islands in the Saint Lawrence River, much like the pink granite outcrop she was standing on.

This region was aptly called the Thousand Islands and a hundred years ago it supported a tourist industry of avid boaters. Now the hazy blue-green landscape before her lay silent to its history, and for a moment she felt akin to the first explorers like Cartier, Cavalier and Champlain, who had forged their way up the gulf of Saint Lawrence and gazed in wonderment at this new foreign land.

Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and longed for fresh meat. She’d run out of her store of dried venison a while ago and was tired of eating roots, herbs and berries. She decided to risk a fire and catch a vole or shrew with her sling. For silence it surpassed the Pol laser gun. She’d made the sling long ago from a piece of rabbit pelt and Aard had shown her how to use it. She’d quickly become adept at hurtling a stone and hitting its target ten meters away. She’d downed grouse, other birds, voles and even rabbits with her silent weapon. Although her hunting weapon of choice was the crossbow, it had not been practical to take on this trip, so she’d settled for the sling, which she could fold up and stash into her pocket.

Julie found a small grotto with a thicket and slung her pack out of view in a silver birch tree before proceeding to a clearing where she’d seen several burrow holes. Accepting that she was trading good travel time for some comforting food in her belly, Julie resigned to wait it out. She found a comfortable position and sat cross-legged, the sling poised in her left hand, and watched the scrubby ground littered with den entrances.

As she waited patiently, Julie took a deep inhale of the sweet peppery fragrances of mint and heather, mixed with the boggy-sweet smell of poplar, hickory and pitch pine. The breeze that sighed through the shrubs and the snapping of the broom’s drying seedpods reminded her of the time Angel had discovered these delightful things. Three years old, Angel had shrieked with joy at the explosive pop of the pods as they threw their seeds into the air in one of nature’s many exuberant displays of propagation. Julie pulled one of the mint stalks beside her to her nose and after a long sniff, she sighed deeply. Am I doing the right thing? Dear Earth, I hope Angel’s safe~

There! A head popped out of the nearest hole. In one fluid motion, Julie aimed and let fly. Thunk! First shot and she’d successfully struck a vole on the head, instantly killing it. Thinking of supper with a smile, Julie sprang up and fished the limp animal out of the hole it had fallen into.

Back at the grotto where she’d hidden her pack, Julie waited for sunset to hide the smoke and then made a fire using some birch bark and dried grass she’d gathered as tinder. She impaled the animal on a willow branch for a skewer. As she waited for the fire to die down to cook the animal over the hot coals, Julie absently watched the flames lick the darkening sky to the east. Her gaze followed the soaring sparks that winked out one by one like dying stars and found her thoughts drifting home to Daniel and Angel.

When the fire had subsided sufficiently, she propped the skewer against several other branches teepee-style over the coals and let the animal cook as she turned to watch the sunset and sip chamomile tea she’d brewed in her small pot. The pungent-sweet smell of the tea made her smile through the corner of her mouth: Angel hated this tea.

Julie stirred the floating chamomile heads with her finger and let her mind wander to the past. When she’d discovered that she was pregnant with Angel she’d become terrified of whether she’d make a good mother. That had all disappeared when Angel was born. One look at her sweet helpless baby and Julie knew exactly what to do. And she’d continued . . . until now. Her little girl was growing up and both mother and daughter were suffering the growth pains. Lately they’d snapped at one another like snarling cougars while Daniel looked on in bemusement. She’d give anything for even that now. Julie wondered when she’d see her little girl again.

It wouldn’t be in Icaria if she could help it. Where they’d hate and fear Angel for her abilities even as they’d coax her for services from those same abilities. Angel was never going there, Julie thought grimly, her nose flaring with fierce determination as she watched the sun disappear behind the horizon. What if she failed in her mission? It was ambitious at best, with significant deterrents, such as her own status in Icaria. It was going to be difficult to find, let alone convince, those in government to leave her and her family alone, if she was still considered a murderer.

What had Frank done with her information cube? She’d pleaded with him to give her information to someone trustworthy ~ Victor Burke, the mayor of Icaria. Had she been wrong? Her cube not only contained vital information on Darwin’s manufacture and etiology but also held her models of personality-types for Dystopians in addition to incriminating information on Gaia and her henchman, John Dykstra, Chief of Secret Pols ~ information that would have cleared her own name. She knew Burke got her information because SAM told her during their last communication that Burke had arrested Dykstra. What about Gaia, then? Was she so powerful that Burke didn’t want to touch her?

Julie realized how hungry she was when she inhaled the delicious aroma of roasting meat carried on the smoke of the fire. She turned to check the cooking animal and gasped. The rodent was on fire!

“Terrific,” she snarled, grabbing the stick and blowing out the flames. She poked the skewer into the ground and put out the campfire, then turned back to her food with a sigh of disappointment. She gingerly picked the black and smoking vole off her skewer and with wincing fingers practically threw it on her bark-plate. It was one sad looking specimen. “Don’t look so glum, pal.” She smiled sadly at the vole’s melted face. “Someday I’ll be just like you. What goes around, comes around. Happens to all of us.” She sighed, taking a small bite. Her teeth sank through the burnt crust into soft meat and she thankfully chewed.

She had to vitamins and minerals for dogs
admit that her luck couldn’t hold out indefinitely. On good days, she made about twenty kilometers. On the bad days, when she had to traverse or veer around a tributary, bay or marsh, she gained less than ten kilometers in her trek. At this rate she was at least another week, possibly two, from Icaria-5. She hadn’t even reached Lake Ontario yet and she still had to cross the turbulent Gananoque River, then hike another three hundred kilometres to Icaria-5. Someone was bound to catch her off guard and she’d be either dead or hauled to the Pol Station for execution or dissected at Icaria’s DP, depending on who caught her first. “Dead or worse . . . just like you,” she said to the vole then took another bite and chewed slowly, letting the evening cacophonies of birdsong lull her.

Her gaze drifted back to where the sun had set to the southwest, the direction she was going. Glowing like crimson embers beneath dark purple clouds, the sky lit a brilliant red gash over the dark horizon. The contrast was remarkable.

Contrast and paradox were deeply embedded in nature, she mused. Her father had always recognized that these lay at the heart of chaos theory. Just as wisdom existed in folly, action in inaction, bravery in cowardice, and ultimately order in chaos. Julie knew her father had been an honorable and meticulous scientist, a fractal ecologist who didn’t shy away from controversy. He’d been brave and daring when it came to seeking the truth, yet he’d carelessly cast her to the neurologists to play with and then lied like a coward to her about what he’d done. Julie looked down at what was left of her food and sighed, no longer hungry.

How did chaos theory apply to her? Irregular phenomena, that’s what chaos was. She seemed to cause it wherever she went ~ like the spread of an epidemic. Changing populations of insects, the propagation of an impulse along a nerve, the random changes in weather, the rise and fall of civilizations . . .What had her father created? A paradox. That’s what she was. He’d called her his angel. “Yeah,” she murmured to herself. “I’m an angel alright, an angel of chaos . . .”

After cleaning up in the growing darkness, Julie carefully surveyed her surroundings to ensure no one lurked nearby, then laid out her insupad and sleeping bag on a flat piece of ground inside a tight ring of bushes. She placed her backpack as a pillow at the head of the insupad then took off her sweaty clothes and slid into the bag, tucking Aard’s gun beside her. She lay on her back, hands clasped behind her head, and looked up at the clear night sky through the broken canopy of shrubs above her. She spotted the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia and Cepheus and wondered if Daniel was gazing at the same night sky. The rhythmic sissing of crickets covered the night with a comforting mantle.

She felt Aard’s gun nestled against her skin like a lover’s hand. It seemed so long ago, she thought, when out of rage she’d shot Frank in the crotch for hurting her uncle and then accidentally shot and killed Ron Hicks, Frank’s Pol partner in the ensuing struggle. Where was Frank now? Probably dead. While he’d recovered well enough from her gunshot wound, he'd told her just before she fled Icaria that he was battling Darwin disease. No one lived more than six months with Darwin, she thought, stroking the weapon and feeling it warm in her hand.

She heard the lonely cry of a wolf echo in the darkness. It sent her mind traveling to the times she and Daniel curled up together with legs and arms entwined and watched the stars, wrapped in nature’s exquisite night sounds. Since they’d come out here they’d never been apart. Until now. Was she soothing herself or torturing herself by coaxing out these thoughts? She supposed that depended on whether she expected to see him soon again . . . or not . . .

Julie turned on her side and, shutting her eyes, she imagined Daniel’s arms embracing her from behind, his warm body moulded to hers. His warm breath sighing on her neck. She felt the ache of longing swell inside her and wrapped her arms around herself. Did he ache for her too? More likely he was outraged with her.

Heather Dugan is a dog shedding supplements
voice-over artist and on-camera talent. Born in Ann Arbor MI, Heather resided in beautiful Ohio, state of rivers and streams, most her life. She received a BA in Communications from Indiana University, Bloomington. After making a splashy entrance in the media field as Miss Columbus (“Sshhh,” says Heather. Sorry! I just had to!), Heather went into radio sales where she was discovered as a talent in “voicing”, which jumpstarted her varied career that included community theatre, radio/TV commercials, industrial films, narrations, phone network commercials, and talk show co-hosting. She has done voicing for Nationwide, The Columbus Dispatch, Bank One, Verizon, Honda of America, Cintas, Lazarus, The Truberry Group, among many other prestigious clients.

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Heather is also an accomplished writer, photographer and musician (keyboardist). She wrote and co-wrote several documentaries, plays and musical compositions. You can see her photography on her travel blog, “Footsteps”. Her first poem, written when she was seven years old, was framed by her mother and sits on her desk. Heather is herself a devoted mother of three children. An avowed passionate traveler, Heather loves the outdoors and adventure. She keeps fit by running in races, kayaking, biking, swimming and weight-lifting. Heather currently lives in Lewis Center, Ohio, with her three children and chocolate lab. Thanks so much, Heather. Your dedication, professionalism & excellent work ethic, and remarkable voice are truly appreciated.

~ Nina Munteanu

Six

In the dim light of pre-dawn, Julie rose from the bed with a sad but determined look back at Daniel’s sleeping form. He murmured something in his sleep and continued breathing heavily. She dressed quickly then slipped the gun into the makeshift holster at the small of her back. After stuffing more clothes, her knife and sling and a few other essentials into her backpack she turned for the door then stopped and let her gaze linger over Daniel’s bearded face. Mouth open and snoring softly, he showed the vague contentedness of deep sleep. His dark hair, a mess of sleep-tangles, spread out from his face over the pillow and she wished with all her heart that she could be curled up beside him, to make love again when he woke.

As she committed that image to memory, she felt her throat swell with longing and regret. He’d think she was abandoning him again, and she was certain that this would irrevocably shatter his trust in her. It was a fragile trust that he’d forged over twelve years and which she would crumble within moments. Julie swallowed down her emotions, realizing that everything Daniel had built and accomplished had been to keep her here, content with him. Perhaps he never did quite trust her. And perhaps he was right. Darling, forgive me . . .

But there was no stopping what she had to do and she knew he’d try to stop her. Icaria wasn’t going to get Angel and the only way she was going to prevent that was to leave. They were after her now ~ Aard had as much as told her that ~ and they weren’t going to stop following her. She thought of the clean, fresh boot track she’d spotted yesterday in the mud among the willows. That had been the first time a spy had come so close and so soon after they’d relocated. She and Daniel hadn’t even finished building their new home.

That was distressing enough, but then she’d spotted the unique and unmistakable tripod impression of the Shadow Unit’s assassin’s gun mount. She’d recognized it from ones Frank had shown her a long time ago. A further examination of the area had revealed that a struggle had occurred where branches had snapped off and a body was dragged for some distance. Who had stopped this operative from killing her? She wondered if Aard was still out there, fulfilling his initial directive. Either way, the stakes had escalated and she knew she was lucky to be alive. If they wanted her, they’d have to follow her and find her, she thought.

She paused at Angel’s own half-finished hut and peered inside. Her daughter lay sprawled on her stomach on her bed, covers akimbo, feet exposed, mouth open in the bliss of sleep and auburn hair spilling in all directions. Julie raised her hand to her mouth and took in a halting breath, fighting the urge to stay. She swung her heavy backpack over her shoulder and that simple action coaxed back a flood of memories: how she’d carried Angel everywhere as an infant in a modified backpack without once considering the added weight. Julie had carried Angel as she tilled the garden, foraged, fished or hunted or fetched firewood or water; while the happy baby pulled her mother’s hair and put it to her mouth, wriggling with pleasure. Julie had never been apart from her child. Now she was willingly leaving her.

Fighting down a moan of grief rising in her throat and quelling the need to seize Angel in one last embrace, Julie turned away and hurried out of the camp.

~~~~

She struck southwest in the burning summer heat toward the large river once called the Saint Lawrence. She intended to keep fairly close to the river in her 450-kilometer trek until she reached Lake Ontario on whose northern shore the ghost surface city, Toronto, used to sprawl. Lying beneath it, with its resplendent towers sprouting up like great crystal stalks out of the brown froth of heath was Icaria-5.

She foraged and ate as she hiked. The season was ripe for berries and ground herbs and so she had plenty to eat. While her plans were admittedly a bit sketchy, her mission was clear: lure them away from Angel and Daniel and then stop them from pursuing her and her loved ones, forever. The first part had been easily accomplished by leaving her family behind. The second part of her mission ultimately relied on her returning to Icaria-5 and confronting those responsible, Julie decided, as she bedded down for the night under a grove of feral apple trees in a long-abandoned settlement. Before she fell asleep, she wondered if she was just rationalizing her urge to return to Icaria.

On the second day she reached the great Saint Lawrence River at the remnants of the small village of Iroquois. Julie made out the seaway locks and the dam as she waded through the hummocky wetland of sedges and purple loosestrife. Overgrown and crumbling from disuse, the locks used to control the river’s fluctuating levels and linked the northern shore, once a part of Ontario, Canada, to the south shore that used to belong to New York State in the United States of America. Now it was all simply Icaria’s North Am.

The Iroquois Locks formed part of an extensive navigation system of dams, powerhouses, locks, channels and dikes that made up the St. Lawrence Seaway, linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. Julie imagined the deep-voiced grinding of those locks a hundred years ago, serving the constant traffic of heavy cargo ships and pleasure boats. Now these monoliths languished under a thick mantle of moss and scrub in a quiet breeze, ghosts of a bygone age.

~~~~

She’d known the day was going to be hot when she woke from a restless sleep the next morning already perspiring. By mid-morning, the sun blazed with an oven’s heat, rousing the grasshoppers into an oscillating chorus. Their hissing songs seemed to commiserate with the heat that crawled over her body as sweat ran down.

Around noon she stopped to eat a meager lunch of berries, roots and several over-ripe plums she’d picked from a derelict orchard. In the shade of the copse of pitch pine trees she had a view of a bridge remnant that once spanned the two-kilometer wide river. As she leaned back, letting the drowsy heat of mid-day envelope her like a narcotic, Julie peered abstractly up at the canopy overhead. How deeper a shade of blue the sky appeared through the gap in the green than in the open. This was, of course, perception, perhaps enhanced by the physics of increased moisture from the trees ¾ it was the same sky, after all.

Was that how her father saw the world? The same ~ yet different ~ through his lens of stable chaos? And how was it possible that he chose to make his world ~ the very same one as hers ~ so different? She would never, NEVER give up her daughter to anything or anyone, no matter what the cause. Julie realized that she’d squeezed the black berries in her hand and their crimson juice ran through her fingers. She jerked to her feet and pressed onward.

By mid-afternoon she was sweating under the beating rays and found an inviting cold creek to cool off. When she returned to her pile of clothes and bent to put them on, she inhaled sharply at the sight of a fresh men’s size nine boot print with unworn treads in the sand of the dried creek bench. After the initial surge of adrenalin, she realized that if he’d meant to kill her, he’d have done it by now ~ even taking into account a delay out of vicarious pleasure to watch her bathe. She let herself feel the thrill of knowing that she’d lured her pursuers away from her family and concluded that this one was simply a spy like Aard, not an assassin. She smiled grimly and fought the impulse to look around as she rose, feeling like a celebrity caught in a compromised position.

Okay, buddy boy, get a good look, she thought as she dried off and hastily dressed, careful not to display Aard’s weapon. She slung her backpack over her shoulders and sprinted up a long rise into scrub-forest. In her dash from the open heath, Julie decided against any more luxurious baths. Dirty was better than dead.

That night she camped inside the foundation of an old church beside a hickory woodland populated by moss-eaten gravestones. Despite her physical exhaustion from the fourteen-hour hike, it was a long time before her restless mind gave in to sleep. She lay on her back inside her sleeping sheet and gazed up at the night sky listening to the crickets that chirped together in an endless hypnotic oscillation. It reminded her of her father’s lectures on stable chaos. How order emerged spontaneously from chaos as synchronous self-organization. Like this field of crickets chirping in concert. Or the millions of neurons firing together in her brain to control her breathing . . . Darwin’s “insect” jargon in her head seemed to follow a similar synchronous pattern. Was it self-organized too and what did that mean?

~~~~

Julie smelled smoke long before she saw the blazing wildfire. It was the middle of a hot day and she’d scrambled up a hogback ridge after traversing a small creek. The smell grew stronger but she saw neither smoke nor fire as she wound her way through the thick forest in the creek’s grotto. She made for higher ground, hoping for a clearing so she could make a bearing and assess the fire.

At the top of the ravine, the trees opened up and she saw carbon-coloured smoke fill the sky. She heard the snapping and crackling of flames ravenously consuming forest and scrub. It was difficult to tell where exactly the fire was burning. It seemed to be all around her, Julie thought with rising alarm. She darted in one direction, realizing she’d chosen it out of no particular reason except to keep moving, only to catch a blaze eating up the trees ahead of her. She veered left, thinking she recognized a clearing. She smelled charcoal and heard the fire sizzle as it gobbled up the juicy flesh of living plants.

Julie burst into the clearing and gasped at the blazing wall of fire as a blast of heat hit her face. Tall flames licked the sky and thick smoke billowed up and roiled in the wind. Coughing from the smoke that burned her throat, she turned and saw that the wind had thrown sparks into the trees behind her. They’d caught like torches dowsed with tube-jet fuel. The fire to her right moved with incredible speed, meeting the flames behind her like mating amoebas.

Julie bore left again, the only direction open to her, and pelted through the scrub forest. She was vaguely aware that several small animals bounded alongside her, likewise dashing for safety.

Somehow ~ she wasn’t sure how ~ she made it through an opening in the advancing firewall and pounded down another valley into a shallow wetland. She plunged with a sharp intake of air into waist-deep bog and scared up a large bird. It squawked and took flight, its great wings sweeping with the sounds of wind gusts. Julie gasped with excitement, momentarily forgetting the fire behind her. A crane ~ her namesake! No, it was just a heron. Since they’d come to live in the heath, Julie had sought the supposedly extinct crane, hoping it still existed. The Head Pol had lectured her once on the Whooping Crane and how it was considered extirpated. Then he’d made some awful reference to her name and her family’s unlucky legacy and personal extirpation.

“Nice guy,” she muttered, stumbling out of the marsh down-wind of the fire. Julie pulled herself out of the rank bog water and forced her screaming muscles into a jog. She refused to stop, throwing frequent glances to her right where the scorched heath continued to smolder.

Exhausted, Julie approached a small creek with giddy relief. She shrugged off her backpack, pulled off her soaked hiking boots and stumbled into the shockingly cold water, sliding and almost falling on the rocks. She directed one of her stumbles into a motion to sit-down and sucked in a sharp breath at the bracing temperature. Pulling off her wet clothes, she once again washed herself, her hair and then her buckskin shorts and faded blue shirt with the soap she’d brought along. It was only then, as she splashed the cool water over her and felt the sharp stings, that Julie noticed the burns on her legs and arms.

She laid out her clothes on sun-heated rocks to dog vitamins reviews
dry and settled herself on the nearby grass with her ankles crossed and hands clasped behind her head. She watched in a daze as the cumulus clouds scudded overhead, dotting a shocking blue sky. To the north, from where she’d just fled, whorls of carbon-coloured clouds spiraled up from the still burning forest in self-entangled streams of black filth. They threatened to swallow the sky in a turbulent display of pure destruction. She remembered her father’s creative definition for turbulence. He’d called it the result of a steady accumulation of conflicting rhythms. Odd, pondered Julie, how the fire, in having destroyed so much life in its expansive sweep, was still part of the natural world. Was this simply nature expressing itself in an inexplicable way, seeking harmony in a scabrous world? Another one of nature’s paradoxes, she thought.

Fire had been a constant hazard in the heath. Yet, fire served the heath by discouraging invasive shrubs and halting succession. The grazing deer populations completed the job of keeping the heath from reverting to woodland. So, fire had its place as creative destroyer in the natural cycle of ecosystem behavior. Stable chaos, according to her father.

It was a harsh and rude environment, Julie concluded. Like thieves in the night, bell heather, gorse and purple loosestrife snatched everything for themselves, leaving nothing for the others. Like many things in nature, the heath plants, though beautiful and fragrant, were ruthlessly greedy. Just like Gaia, Julie thought suddenly with a wry smile . . . Yes, Gaia . . .

The same day Julie and SAM had discovered that she was Prometheus, they’d uncovered Gaia’s dubious history and her insidious connection to Julie’s dead father. When Julie was five, Gaia, still known as Monica Schlange, the mayor of Icaria-11, oversaw the creation of Proteus by Dr Damien Vogel and its injection into Julie. Schlange had cleverly convinced Janet, the cousin of Julie’s father, to spread the virus, hoping that it would give her city a decided advantage. Instead, Schlange watched in silent complicity as Proteus pathogenically morphed into Darwin disease, the killer plague of the century that eventually destroyed Icaria-11.

Schlange quickly slithered out of that mire, covered her tracks by arranging her own “death” and ensured that all witnesses to the creation of Proteus were silenced, including Darwin’s creator, Vogel, whose murder was blamed on Julie’s father. With the help of nuyu and nuergery treatments, she then emerged as Gaia.

Julie snapped into a sitting position with an exasperated grunt. Summoning her earlier resolve not to expose herself in the open like this, she rose, flung on her damp clothes and got back on the move.

~~~~

When Julie doubled back around a treacherous river gorge, she found fresh boot tracks and a recently dropped soy-chip wrapper on the ground. They were getting sloppy, she thought, picking up the wrapper. Or was that they didn’t care if she knew they were there. Either way, it suggested over-confidence. Reminded of how she’d evaded Frank when he’d stalked her after she broke up with him, Julie found the idea of playing cat and mouse with her pursuers strangely pleasant.

A sudden breeze cooled her face and Julie stopped to gaze at a dark anvil-shaped cloud rearing up like a fierce dragon above the lower cumulous layer. The storm cloud cast a rain shadow that bore down on her and within moments black clouds scudded overhead. A salvo of huge raindrops hammered down on her like missals, soaking her instantly and sluicing down her back and front. The wind wicked away her remaining heat and she ran for cover. Her magnified senses now detected someone following her, about fifty meters behind. Her sloppy pursuers, she thought, fingering their litter in her pocket.

She found a small grotto and hastily erected her tarp under a few scrubby birch trees as if to settle in. She left her pack inside then slipped out through the scrub and doubled back to where she heard the sounds of her pursuers, rustling nervously and whispering to one another. She found them hunkered under an ash tree that offered little protection from the pouring rain. One lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes trained at her tarp, still thinking her there. The other pressed into the tree to get out of the rain and complained about everything, including her: “Vee-damn it, Roger. Every time our air scanner finds that crazy chickyvee, she takes off. It’s as if she knows we’re here. Veemelds give me the creeps. Especially her. Chaos, she deserves to be dead. When do we pull her in?”

She felt anger boil up and broke into a crouched run. Before the complainer had time to react, she’d raced up from behind and whacked him hard with the butt of her gun. Roger, who’d trained his binoculars on the tarp the whole time, turned. For a heartbeat they stared at one another, eyes blinking back the rain. Then, hardly breaking her initial momentum, she leaped, leg flying. Her boot connected with his chin. It threw him back and he collapsed on the ground as she landed on her feet.

“Now you have a reason to call me a ‘crazy chickyvee’,” she said darkly.

Both men were going to have king-size aches when they woke up, she thought as she tucked the discarded wrapper into the waste-band of Roger’s pants. She found communicators and Pol-issue laser guns on both men. Julie grabbed the pair of binoculars, the communicators and the guns and was about to leave when she turned back, smiling suddenly with wicked inspiration.

After a few moments, she sprinted back to her tarp and backpack, both pairs of pants under her arm. She removed the spare laser-cells, tossed the guns and the men’s pants into the bushes, then packed up and set off in the hissing rain as darkness fell. Negotiating rough terrain was treacherous in the dark, but Julie pressed on, needing to gain a good distance from her clumsy and no doubt angry pursuers.

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Five

Daniel wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, set his mortar trowel down beside the unfinished cabin wall of their new campsite then rose to stretch. He watched Julie’s slender figure below him, as she negotiated the river cobbles with the ease of a dancer. She pirouetted from one rock to another over the churning water, sun-bleached hair bouncing behind her like a wild river. She resembled a wild prairie nymph in her buckskin shorts, faded blue shirt and buckskin jerkin.

It drew out a sighing smile from him and reminded him of when they’d first met: two urchins facing each other, arms diving into a garbage can for the half-eaten sandwich some woman had dropped in moments ago. Meeting her savage eyes, set in a belligerent face of big protruding teeth and a shock of straw-coloured hair, he’d liked her instantly. They called a truce and shared the sandwich.

He’d invited her and her little sister to join his rag-tag group of orphans ~ abandoned by confused parents in the chaos of the Darwin plague. For two years they lived in bivouacs built of the city’s refuse, sleeping in nests of garbage and stealing food ~ mostly nano-soup ~ and technological equipment. Techno-slumming. And always on the run from the cypols, the inner-city’s predatory robots that chased them like they were vermin. Julie called herself Angel, and that was what she was, a savior to his disparate group.

When she let herself be captured by a cypol to find her sister who’d been taken earlier, Daniel never forgave her. He knew she was safe because veemelds were prized in the outer-city. Because he didn’t have to worry for her welfare, there remained only a burning resentment that she’d left him behind. Eventually his orphan group fell into disarray and he was left miserably alone with the empty dreams she’d fed him. Daniel vowed never to trust his heart to a veemeld again.

Years later, fate threw them together again, but by then they didn’t recognize each other. When she’d been taken to the outer-city they’d fixed her over-bite, then she’d let her hair grow long and eventually she’d filled out from that scrawny garbage-picking kid into a graceful, beautiful woman. Daniel, too, had undergone the obligatory transformation toward outer beauty once he made it to the outer-city: he’d fixed his broken nose and acne scars, then he’d changed his brown eyes to blue and coloured his hair with ‘nuyu’. They fell in love, of course: two strangers, inexplicably familiar and on a collision course with deception, lies and betrayal . . .

Julie made it to the other side of the creek and scrambled up the steep slope to a willow stand she intended to cut down for the insulation of their new roof.

Daniel returned his gaze to the wall he was building and exhaled. Several days ago he and Julie had finished hauling in five dozen birch logs from the woodland a kilometer to the south and he was presently sealing the horizontal logs stacked between support poles with straw-and-mud mortar. Unlike their cabin at the camp they’d shared with Aard, this one would have rough wooden shutters rather than duraplast windows because there was no Aard to provide them with materials from abandoned dwellings. This was going to be a very basic log cabin, Daniel concluded. They required a solid shelter to keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer but it wasn’t worth the bother to make it fancy, he thought, especially if they weren’t going to stay in it for long.

This was their third camp in three months and Julie remained restless like a trapped cougar, like she was running from something. Herself, maybe? She’d always given them good reason to break camp but he knew she was lying and it disturbed him that she’d resorted to that. It saddened him that she didn’t include him in her greatest concerns. She didn’t trust him anymore. Since Aard had disappeared, her nigh