A soft chime, nothing more than a breath really, crossed his sense of awareness. Just the lightest touch of memory of his life before was rising up within in response. A yearning need to explain everything. A desire to find a way to say everything that was left unsaid until now.
The Vox on soft ground pinged again, and then followed with its typical voices-within-a-voice, but far more artificial than a natural speaker.
“VOICE ENCODING READY, TRANSMISSION STANDBY
PLEASE RECORD YOUR MESSAGE
TOUCH ENCODE CRYSTAL TO TRANSMIT
PROCEED.”
Chase sat there, thinking it through. He wiped his hands on his pant legs, and cleared his throat.
“Hey. This is Chase,” he said. Chase paused and thought about the face of his… “Hi Mom.”
Another pause. He wiped absentmindedly at his brow, scratching at his hairline.
“I am not sure you will recognize my voice. But its me. Your son. Sorry I kind of just disappeared on you all like that. I know you probably think I am dead. Well surprise, I’m not. Tell everyone that I miss them. I would make a list, but I need to focus. I was told it has been four years for me now? But that is more like eight years for all of you. That is what Sarah explained to me.”
Chase took a deep breath, letting it pass his teeth slowly. He cleared his throat again.
“Uh… Where do I start? I… I am the first? I am the first. At least that is what I was told the first time I met Sarah. Right now you may be thinking I am talking about losing my virginity or something crass like that, but that is not what this is all about. This is about the Hylx. And this is about us.”
Another deep breath. He did not want to ramble.
“I was mad at you guys when I left that night. Now I know that I was thirteen going on full blown adult, and I thought that I knew everything. I thought that I knew what life is, I thought I had it all figured out. But I was wrong. I am sorry for leaving you all. Especially that way. That was no way to treat you or Kevin. I am sorry about all of it. But! I am not sorry about what happened to me. I would never take that back. Me being a jerk and running off that night lead to all of this other stuff… and without that I would not have this, so…”
He rambled anyway.
“How do I explain this? Can I explain this?”
A soft hand laid on his shoulder, and without looking, Chase laid his own hand over the top, feeling the warmth of Sarah’s hand spread through his own.
“I ran off into the woods. I was angry with you and Kevin. I can’t even remember about what. Something stupid, like you forcing me to do my homework over because I scored below a B. I remember how strict you were, and I was fed up. Kevin was trying to preach about listening to my mom, she had my best interests at heart, blah, blah, blah. I did not want to hear it. Plus, to be honest, I did not like Kevin. I am not sure if you are still married or anything, hopefully you are happy. Hopefully…”
A reassuring squeeze from Sarah. Chase sighed again.
“It doesn’t matter. But I ran off. I got lost in the woods. I fell down that stupid ravine you always warned me about and really hit my head. I probably would have died that night of exposure since I was so hurt. I mean I did not even have my jacket. But Sarah saved me. The Hylx are a lot like us. They knew that I was hurt, and they needed someone to study. As they would say, it was a fortunate circumstance. I was the first. Not the only… but the first. So they made the call.”
Chase looked up at the purple fronds far overhead, stretching for meters far above, shielding the orange light of the two suns. Only Maka was up, Nera would be coming in about two hands. He had time to really think this through.
“I know now that they saved me. Whatever brain injury I had, their medics saved me. And I met Sarah. She was the first thing that I saw when I woke up. She was the first Hylx that talked to me and helped me regain my memory and all the other things that come with an injury like that. It was a hard time, learning to walk again, and to speak, but it came back. It all came back. And Sarah was with me through all of it. She is here with me, say hello to my mom, Sarah.”
Voices-within-a-voice sounded, overlaid with context and emotion and thought. The voice was as soft as her touch.
“Glad to introduce
mother of Chase
kindness extended
respect and love.”
Chase grinned. “I am not sure how that will sound over a speaker, but hopefully you get the gist. Its different in person. You can hear all of it. I don’t know why, but its all there. So much I don’t understand, and that is the reason I stayed. I need you to know that I did not run away. I wanted to come back. But at the same time, I wanted to understand. I wanted to understand who they were. I wanted to know Sarah like she knew me. So first of all, I guess I can start there. Sarah is not her real name. It is something else…”
“Seraphina
ixialiiale
seraahaime
shixisiina.”
“Yeah that. Thanks Sarah. I couldn’t hear the other parts when I woke up the first time. I could only hear Seraphina. And it stuck. She did not appreciate it at first, but that changed when she started to interact with me. In our un-nurtured state, we are like children to them. They think so much faster than us, and are able to work things out. She has kind of been my mom away from home. She has done a great job too. You should know that Sarah takes great care of me. She has encouraged me to learn and exercise, she helps care for me. She has pushed me to think like the Hylx, and while I am not as fast as them, they value what I have to offer. They say that we all have this potential. That we can grow, like children to adults. Which is funny because they have like double the amount of life stages than a human. They are really shortening the metaphor.”
Chase laughed softly.
“The Hylx almost look like monkeys. Imagine blue monkeys with over-sized eyes and hands, and they can move fast, like a hummingbird. But they are not stable physically like a human… they shift. They waver like they are in heat waves on a far off horizon. Something about quantum phase shifting that I don’t understand yet. Their species evolved in a very dangerous world, and they evolved to manipulate energy states. It makes them look like they are moving, even when they are standing perfectly still. Sarah tells me that is why they are so smart. They leverage energy use in so many different ways, their brains are always working faster than a physical body would permit. So much I don’t understand… yet.”
“You will
you will
you will
you will.”
“You probably heard that. That is called an alignment statement. Hylx can make their states superimpose to get a point across. For the first few weeks, that is all Sarah did to communicate with me. She really took her time to help me. You would like her mom. So don’t be mad, ok? Sarah took care of me. She saved me.”
Chase ran his hand through his hair, feeling the pull of a few knots at the ends of his long locks.
“You should see me. I haven’t cut my hair since I arrived. It is so long.”
“Tell your mother
about the comings
and the goings
and the warnings.”
“Earth is dying. The Hylx know because they have been studying us for millennia. They watched the human race rise up, and they knew we needed to be nurtured from nearly the beginning. All the killing, mom. They cry for us. They sing for us. They pray for us. We are so much better than what we think we are. We are amazing creatures and we cannot see past our small little slices of experience of reality. The Hylx have been planning on changing that for the last thousand years. As I said, I was the first.”
A cough again, clearing his throat.
“The Hylx have predicted that Earth will no longer support human life in about one hundred years. They say that everything that is being done now is too little, too late, to use the sentiment. They admire the human spirit, and they hope that it will serve us well in the days to come. They have established gates all over the Earth. Only one person can walk through at a time. The gates connect to other worlds. Each gate on Earth is one way. And each gate leads to a planet with another nexus of gates.”
“A gift
a gift
a gift
a threat.”
“Sarah tells me that this is a gift for the human race, but the humans have to comply with their demands. And that is the reason I am sending this message. You and Kevin, and everyone else that you care about needs to follow the instructions. Find a gate, and find a Hylx for nurturing. Otherwise, you will die alone on a planet that has given up. And then the Hylx will be terraforming it to make is habitable again. They estimate roughly three and half thousand years to make it healthy.”
“The gates will gain lots of attention. When they are turned on, you will see the world light up with alarms and warnings and militaries thinking they are doing the right thing. But messages like mine are going to be broadcast around the world. They have been nurturing thousands of us.”
Chase took a deep breath, focusing his thoughts on the potential of his voices.
“I was the first
not the only.”
He reached out and touched Vox crystal without any hesitation. Sarah laughed with joy and hugged his shoulders, her long blue arm crossing his chest.
“MESSAGE ENCODED
TRANSMISSION SENT
VOX ONLINE.”