Chapter Fourteen: Eternal Life

Chapter Fourteen: Eternal Life

Megan found she loved horseback riding.

She had been learning all sorts of things in the hundred years since she’d returned. Her sights had been set very low then, focused on the next few hours and nothing else. With eternity ahead, it had taken her years to force herself to look further than that. She had listened to everything people said, not to her, but to each other, and she had watched everything they did, even when nobody thought they were being watched.

After a while, she had accepted the world at face value, and been baptized. Strange as it seemed, the girl who had longed for family so desperately now had a whole planet full of brothers and sisters.

Chogan was a friend of hers. He had been raised in the Cree Tribe before the Europeans had colonized North America. He had been killed in a tribal war. It had taken him a while to accept the Christian faith, given that he had never heard of it, but he was very laid-back, and accepted what he saw as truth. He had been the first Blue Letter that Megan had received; and the two remained close friends.

Isobel had taken him on as a study once he had expressed a desire to return to the lands he recognized, and look for family members. None had returned yet, but Isobel discovered that he had experience as a horse trainer; and Chogan had very quickly found a place for himself. When he returned to the Brooklyn area as a baptized brother, he had brought two young colts with him.

“They were my payment for services rendered to Isobel and her caravan.” Chogan had explained to Megan. “I would like you to take the other one.”

Megan had refused, as politely as she could. She still lived with her parents, as she now thought of Hugh and Kasumi, and while she was of age to find her own place, there were plenty of extended families living together. There were as many combinations of families under one roof as there were houses being built. New homes were still being built at a dramatic rate for Returned ones, so most people with families agreed to stay with their kin until the Returning was over.

Chogan had accepted her refusal graciously, and accepted his own piece of land. He had built a very small home and turned most of it into space for his horses. Most Animals were considered community property, and came and went as they wished, but the horses were working animals; and that made them part of his livelihood.

After turning down ownership of the beautiful chestnut Arabian horse, Megan couldn’t bring herself to refuse the invitation to come and visit him instead. She had come by fairly often; and the horse (which she had named Kent, after the Kentucky Derby) knew her as well as he knew Chogan; and was always happy to see her.

Once Kent was old enough, Chogan had insisted on teaching her to ride. Megan had been fearless at any speed since she was twelve years old, and had accepted. Kent was very patient with her, instead of the other way around, and the two of them had jumped the fence by the end of the first lesson and gone galloping off into the open country for most of the afternoon.

In the years that followed, Megan had found it harder and harder to leave the horse behind at Chogan’s stable at the end of the day.

Then, one day, she just stopped coming back.

~~/*\~~

Chogan arrived at their doorstep and knocked. Megan answered it, and deflated a little. “I guess I should have expected that.” She sighed.

“If you had wanted me to stay away, you should have said something. Kent misses you, and so do I.” Chogan reminded her. “They used to think that animals didn’t have emotions, but-”

“They do.” Megan accepted. “If I didn’t think so before, I do now.” Megan slipped out and closed the door behind her. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

She lead him to the front yard, and they settled in the lounge-chair, woven from a still living tree. Hugh had grafted a few of his fruit tree limbs into it, weaving them up as a canopy. After four hundred years, the tree was still alive, and the seat and its back had settled and worn in comfortably.

Chogan sat beside Megan, letting her speak first. His fingers traced the bark under his hand. He found a carving of Hugh’s initials, with Kasumi’s right next to them, and Megan’s close by.

“Animals are amazing things, you know.” Megan said softly. “I remember, back in OS, there was this stray mutt that spent rainy nights in our Squat. He was looking to keep warm, and that was fine with us. When the rain stopped, he stayed.”

“What happened?”

“Same thing that always happened back then.” Megan waved that off. “Every single animal I ever saw in those days, everything from a cockroach up; knew to run away from humans as fast as possible. Then I got here, and the lambs don’t even run from lions, let alone us. I don’t know how animals got the message. Did animals just… know? After A-Day, did they all just know that it was okay to seek out humans suddenly?”

“After the Great Flood, Jehovah built a fear of man into the animals. I don't know if he took that away immediately, but after a single animal generation of not being hunted or abused; there would have been no reason for them to teach their young to avoid us. Humans and animals have always had relationships, Megan.” Chogan told her kindly. “My culture growing up worshiped them. They were revered, even when we hunted; because they were warmth and food and tools and survival. They were honored as a life-source, or a life partner. And that’s not just us. Most cultures have animals tied closely to their civilization. Some animals in particular. When I came back and started learning the modern world’s take on living things, I learned how every creature had a function. You can see Creation in them. God could have made a system that didn't need animals, or for that matter, one that needed very few; but he put so much diversity into it… You can tell He was just enjoying Himself.”

“And then we come along and… what? Put them all in battery farms? Test cosmetics on them until they turn blind? Pack them into cages and stuff them with food until we could march them into slaughterhouses?”

“That hasn’t happened in five hundred years. No human has slain anything since A-Day. No animal has slain another either.” Chogan told her. “You won’t find a single animal that has a reason to fear, any more than we do.”

“Exactly.” Megan said, as though that proved everything.

Chogan stared at her. “I know you think you just won that debate, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Five hundred years. How long is that in animal generations? Mayflies live a day or two. Sea turtles live for centuries. Cats and dogs live for fifteen years or so…”

Chogan suddenly understood. “Horses, thirty year lifespan.”

“Animals don’t get resurrections, Chogan. No matter how much we love them.” Megan summed up. “I don’t understand people who want pets. I don’t understand people who want to spend years caring for living things hand and paw like babies that never grow up, knowing that they have to lose them.” Megan waved a hand. “All those publications in OS, where they had hundreds of paintings and renderings of life in the new world… They always had at least one kid playing with a pet tiger. Look around, Chogan. Where would I even keep a tiger? It’s a big creature; needs more room to run around than I’ve got available.”

Chogan chuckled a bit at that.

Megan shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it. We live in a world where we never have to lose anything any more; and what do you do? You pick ‘animal trainer’ as your profession. You chose the one business in the world where you’re absolutely certain to get your heart broke every other decade.”

“My heart’s tougher than that.” Chogan told her. “I spend thirty years with a horse, filling my heart up big and full, and then that horse is gone, but their colt or filly is there, needs plenty of love too. That’s another thirty years filling up my heart. You’re right. We are ageless, the animals aren’t. But your parents? They knew each other, and then they knew you, and when you have kids, they’ll know them too. All of us have to care about others in ways that transcend generations now. When you make a lifelong friend, you have to know that you’ll be meeting their great-great-great-grand-kids one day.”

Megan sighed a little. “I guess we do.”

(Author’s Note: Whether or not the animals gain eternal life either is an interesting question. The only direct reference I could find was in the 15/10/1950 Watchtower in response to a Question From Readers. The determination is that the status of animals was unchanged after Eden, since Animals neither rebelled, nor could they make use of the Ransom. Hence, it stands to reason that animals have always been this way. I suppose it’s possible God will let us keep the particular animals we love, into eternity, just so that we won’t ever cry; but obviously there’s no evidence of that.)

“Thirty years loving one, then thirty years loving another, and some heartbreak in between? Still a good deal. I grew up with that. My heart’s so much stronger now than it was then.”

Megan was silent a moment. “Well, mine’s not.” She said finally. “I understand if that makes you think less of me, Chogan… But I can see Kent slowing down, getting older… And I’d rather remember him as the one that galloped me straight over your fence and clear across the horizon. Put him out to stud, and don’t let me know when he’s gone.” She rose and went back to the house before he could argue the point.

Megan shut the door behind herself and spotted Kasumi at the window. She had heard the whole thing.

~~/*\~~

“The problem is, I can’t really fault her.” Kasumi sighed as she put a bowl of soup in front of her husband, and another across the counter for herself. “She doesn’t want to love something that will die one day.”

“She loves that horse now. If she’s not there when it happens, is it going to make her miss him any less?”

“Possibly not, but… It’s not like I can tell her she has to be there to watch.” Kasumi shook her head. “We are directed to live in harmony with living things, and to care for our animals. That doesn’t mean we have to invite them into the house, though enough people do.”

“Thing is, Megan’s not refusing the animals because she doesn’t love them. She’s refusing because she loves them very much… And once you go down that road…”

Kasumi put a higher pitch in her voice. “'No, no sweetie; your puppy didn't die, daddy just took him out to a farm where he could run and play with all the other dogs'... It was a cliché back in OS, and I wonder...”

Hugh was about to answer, when he slurped another spoonful of the soup. “Hey, this is amazing.”

“You like it?” Kasumi was very pleased with herself. “I was thinking of making it part of my contribution to the Welcoming for Judy Mallory.”

“Good choice.” Hugh sipped again. “Since when do you cook Italian?”

“You were kind enough to learn how to eat Asian, I can learn to cook European.” His wife teased. “As a matter of fact, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Four months until our anniversary, and I thought maybe it was time we traveled together again. We haven’t done that for a while.”

“Italy?”

“I met a sister who was just coming off a European trip. She’s the one that taught me how to make tonight’s dinner. There’s a place open to the public there. They take people in all year round, and teach them how to cook genuine local cuisine. Including how to grow it, or where they trade it from. The whole thing is basically a tour of the culture. The Great Exchange made it all enjoyable, but there’s still a lot of the original history that got lost in the shuffle.”

“At least for now.” Megan put in as she came downstairs to join them. She sat at the table and her mother quickly served another bowl for her. “The ‘original history’ all gets remembered when the people in it come back, surely?”

“That’s the idea, but the thing is, a lot of the ways people used to amuse themselves is obsolete, a lot of the ways they used to cook, or dress, or travel is falling by the wayside. And that’s becoming something of an issue with the Returnees, because…”

“Fastest way to help people settle in somewhere new is to give them something familiar to hold onto.” Hugh summed up.

“In places like Italy, their religion was a huge part of their lives for two thousand years. Take that away and then tell them they can’t ever get it back, or their favorite foods, or their favorite music… Folks are having trouble with that.”

Hugh nodded. “Isobel tells me that there’s another Renaissance going on, people from older times keeping their traditions alive.”

“I thought we were letting all that go.” Megan commented. “And this is really good soup.”

“Nothing wrong with tradition, Megan. It’s our history, and wishing it away doesn’t help anyone. There are times when traditions become straitjackets, and other times when they are reassuring source of identity for people who don’t understand where they are or what century it is.”

Megan smiled at her parents. “So, you planning to go to Italy for a while?”

“Would that be okay with you?” Kasumi asked. “You’ve never been to Italy, and I’m told the people are very friendly-”

Hugh made a growling noise, deep in his throat.

Megan smiled brilliantly at him. “Don’t like the idea of Italian guys being friendly with your daughter? You do realize I’m over a century old now, right?”

Hugh just growled again. “I don’t like that idea either.”

Megan turned to Kasumi. “Anyway, you don’t have to take me along. In fact, I’d like to stay with Uncle Nick for a while.”

“Nick? Why?”

Megan grinned. “Because Izzy told me a few things too.”

Hugh smirked, intrigued. “Well, we’re looking for a place to have Miss Mallory's Welcoming, why not Nick’s place?”

~~/*\~~

There wasn’t a lot of reason to hold off on having a party. The sun coming up in the morning was usually reason enough. Every other week, someone in the local congregation would welcome back an old friend, or a lost loved one, and the congregation would rally around to have a proper welcoming party. Hugh hadn’t gotten one because he was the first of his family to return, and his crewman Aimes hadn't known he was coming, but he’d been part of the congregation for centuries and had taken on some of the Ministerial Duties; so when he organized a Welcoming, everyone knew about it.

Nick Alman had moved house in the two centuries since Megan had become part of the family. His new place included a much larger workshop/laboratory, where he spent most of his time. On the top of a hill at the edge of the community, he also had his own observatory, the product of over three centuries of saving and ninety years of design and construction. The telescope was something entirely new, designed by the Expo. Nick was one of fifteen people taking a thorough look at the universe for various projects.

But at the edge of town, he also had plenty of room on his property, and no immediate neighbors, which made his home the perfect place to throw a party with a hundred guests.

Hugh munched on some strawberries from the buffet table and knocked at the door to the workshop. Nick called him in. Hugh came in with a light glare. “You know, people are having fun outside.”

“I'm coming, I just wanted to put this down while I thought of it...” Nick was hunched over a map at his drawing board, and a large screen full of math equations hung beside him on the wall.

Hugh’s mind was sharper than it had ever been, and every pilot needed math skills. Nick was trying to balance two figures. “What’s the project of the day?”

Nick tapped at the screen. “Trying to balance ecology with population. The whole point of modern architecture and town planning is that nature and civilization aren't removed from each other any more, but with billions of people... We're looking into the feasibility of rebuilding the cities.”

“I went out to the old cities. Nature has retaken almost all of it.” Hugh smiled to himself. “Grass, tearing apart concrete.”

“Nature always wins.” Nick demurred. “But there’s breaking through roads and then there’s needing a road a thousand years from now. Technology is such that what we put down may not move for a half million years, so we better design places with a million years in mind...” Nick put his stylus down. “How are those strawberries?”

“They’re good…” Hugh suddenly froze. “Why? What did you do to them?!”

“Oh, One Time! I use you as a control group in one experiment.” Nick snorted. “Naw, the plants are fine, it’s my new hydroponics bay. Wanna see?” Nick caught himself. “But, of course you came over to talk to me for an entirely different reason, didn’t you?”

“I don’t need a reason to talk to my only brother, but since you asked: Megan has expressed a desire to go back to school.” Hugh said.

Nick grinned. “I’m glad.”

“So I’m setting up tutors for her. The Classes would teach her the basics, but Erica covered a lot of that, and Megan doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with workplaces, at least not yet. She may have decided to open up to me and Kas, but that’s not the whole world, so…”

“So you’d like to keep her apprenticeships in the family for now.” Nick nodded approvingly. “Good thinking.”

“You’re qualified enough in engineering, biology, chemistry, botany… You could teach a class in any of these things.”

“Happy to do it.” Nick nodded. “It’s time she looked long term anyway. She’s a skilled musician, but I think that we both know she wants that to be a hobby more than a career.”

“Her album sold over twenty thousand copies.”

“Over sixty years.” Nick reminded him. “Besides, she’s never made any effort to go on tour, or to hook up with a band. Does she even play with other people?”

“She started with one heck of a handicap, brother. Her childhood dream of what to be when she grew up was ‘alive’ and nothing else. I don’t blame her for having a hundred different interests and no career plan. Plenty of people have woken up in the 26th century with the same problem. Horizons keep expanding. I’ve been a pilot since the 1930’s, and I still think of it as a way to get spare change. For all I know, my lifelong passion is for an industry that doesn’t exist yet.”

Nick tilted his head. “You wanna sit in on some courses too? See if anything appeals?”

Hugh rubbed his eyes. “I gotta admit, I was tempted to go back to school again. There’s all sorts of classes for adults, since so many of the people coming back never got their chance at choosing their own jobs and such.”

Nick looked over. “Why don’t you? I’ve noticed almost everyone I know working on one class or another, either to lean more about an interest, or to keep up with the times. Why don’t you go along to the Universities?”

“I do, but most of my classes are to keep my licenses up to date. I work as an instructor. Your Brains Trust is working on new kinds of aircraft every day, new kinds of power systems… I have to stay checked out on all of them. Megan wants her Uncle Nick to teach her. She loved your classes.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” Nick grinned. “Still, I’m a little surprised she doesn’t want to go to other schools or tutors. She’d make all sorts of new friends…”

“That's the reason. Have you noticed Megan didn’t have pets growing up?”

Nick nodded.

“It’s because animals don’t get eternal life the way we do. Megan started from a perspective of losing loved ones more than she gained. A cat lives for twelve years. That’s a long weekend for people who have lived for centuries.”

Nick glanced back at the closed door. “Just between you and me, she isn’t the only one having a problem with that. In fact, there are a few people at the Expo trying to work a way around it.”

Hugh blinked. “Around what?”

“Death.”

Hugh stared. “We have a way. We’re living proof.”

“I don’t mean for us, necessarily.” Nick spoke quietly. “I’m not one of them, but… At the end of OS, there was a great many projects trying to crack the death barrier. Cryonics, Singularity, Cloning… They had all kinds of different names for it. But the plan was to conquer death.”

Hugh was honestly confused. “Why would that… I mean, why would they be doing that now?”

Nick shook his head. “Nick, no two experts have ever been able to agree on how the aging process worked. All the things they could do back then, all the things we can do now, and we still don’t know how it went. Well, some people worked their whole lives trying to attain immortality, and they missed A-Day, but in their time they thought they were getting somewhere. This is a group of people who have come back and picked up a thread they put down ages ago.” He shook his head. “And they won't succeed. Death wasn't a genetic weakness to be fixed, it was a punishment.” Nick returned to the earlier point. “Megan wants me as her tutor because she knows me already.”

Hugh shook it off. “Right. She’s not… closed, like she was when we first met her, but she’s learned how to ‘travel light’. If she can have a happy life with family and three or four close friends instead of a thousand acquaintances, that’s fine with me. Nothing in the third or fourth testament that says how many friends you need to have.” He smirked. “And hey, if she makes one new friend every century, that’s still an infinite number of future friends on the way.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

“And there’s another reason.” Hugh explained. “Kasumi and I were going to take a tour to Europe for a while. A year at most. Megan’s old enough, but as I said, her circle’s still small, so…”

“You want her to stick close to the family that stays when you leave.”

“We offered to take her with us, but…” Hugh grinned slowly. “Then we found out you were-”

“You heard about that already?!” Nick rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I was going to invite everyone out, make an announcement, make an event out of it!”

“Nick, you can’t keep a secret any more. That’s why nobody does anything salacious or criminal.”

“That and one other reason.” Nick drawled.

Hugh smiled broadly. “Congratulations, Nick! Why didn’t you tell us right away? You’ve been trying to get a residence at the Expo for three hundred years! I assume you told Rachel?”

“She was the one that told me I was in. Obviously, she’s thrilled too.”

“When are you gonna marry that girl?”

“When I get around to it.”

“She turned you down, didn’t she?”

“Just until the project we're working on is finished. Another year or two. I can wait.”

“Just like the last time she put you off.”

“We have things to do.” Nick waved that off. “So, you knew I was leaving and you figured the last thing I do before I pack should be to tutor your daughter?”

“Call it self-centered if you like, but if we had schools like this when we were kids…”

“You didn’t do too badly.” Nick pointed out. “How many kids from our old school got to become pilots?”

“Not many.” Hugh admitted. “So. You got anywhere else to be before you leave for the Expo?”

“Actually, I have a few stops to make.” Nick nodded, busy with things. “I'm part of the logistics team on Rachel's new project, and after that I have a quick job up north. I’m installing some laser pointers.”

“Some what?”

“You remember a long time ago I asked about whether or not natural laws of movement have been put on pause forever? Well, a small team is aiming to find out for sure. You use a laser sensor, you can measure something’s movement up to a thousandths of a millimeter. You anchor the pointer properly, and you can keep a measurement going for a full century.”

“What are you searching for?

“Erosion. They say Niagara falls will wear away to nothing in fifteen thousand years. The continents move by two centimeters every year. What’s it going to be like in a million years? We’ll have to redraw the maps…”

“Once every million years? I think we can handle that.”

“Yeah, but my point is that when those continental plates rub together, there’s an earthquake. Except that natural disasters have all stopped, haven’t they? So are the plates still moving? Because if they are, then the mountains will keep rising, and the land masses will keep changing shapes. A million years from now, this spot where I’m sitting might be underwater. But if they’ve stopped, then what’s going on with the geology? Because the world is full of magma, isn’t it? And that never stops moving. Life on the planet depends on it, in a lot of ways…”

“These are all good questions.” Hugh agreed. “And you know what?”

Nick sighed, settling back in his chair. He answered by rote. “We’ll learn these things eventually.” He gestured at his workstation. “So why not get to work finding out?”

There was a sudden shout from outside, and then the screaming started.

Hugh and Nick hadn’t heard startled screams in centuries, and they went running out to the backyard to see what had happened.

Two of the younger children had been climbing the trees on the edge of Nick's property, and one of them had fallen, headfirst to the ground…

The one falling headfirst suddenly stopped, hanging in mid-air. The Wings were visible a moment later. The other boy hit the ground and started wailing loudly. The angel set the first boy down gently, and took the other's hand. His crying stopped instantly, and he sat up, healed.

Those watching applauded loudly, but the angel didn’t stop to take a bow. He spoke briefly with the boys and faded into nothingness with a smile.

“Why did he only catch the one?” Nick asked quietly. “He could have caught both easily. He saved one, let the other drop.”

“And healed his injury right away.” Hugh countered. “What do you want to bet that the boy he caught would have killed himself? He was falling headfirst. God promised an end to death, but not to simple human error.”

“I’ve singed myself with the soldering iron once or twice.” Nick observed. “I’ve spent centuries learning how to use my fingers, so I don’t often cut myself shaving any more, or skin myself when I’m peeling potatoes… But I was hiking last year, and put my foot in a sink hole. Even a perfect person can’t see through the ground, so I turned my ankle. It hurt.”

“But you didn’t get an angel in front of you, telling you where to put your feet.” Hugh nodded. “I remember, when you were born, mom helping you learn to walk. She held your hands out to balance you. But she let go when you tried to take a step on your own.”

Nick got the point. “Not going to learn much if we can’t take a single step without ‘daddy’.”

“God promised no fear of death or illness. The kids are both fine. Even if the boy had been resurrected, he would have died through no fault of his own; if only for a few seconds. And that’s not what this world is about.”

(Author’s Note: No specific scriptures speak on whether or not we’ll even be capable of injury or accident. The closest thing is Psalm 93:11: “For he will give his angels a command concerning you, To guard you in all your ways. They will carry you on their hands, So that you may not strike your foot against a stone.” But it is unclear if this is metaphorical or literal. It stands to reason that a perfect person would be less prone to accident, but there are still things that even a perfect person can’t predict, like having the ground fall away during a hike. ‘Death will be no more’ is fairly straightforward. ‘Pain will be no more’ is open to some interpretation. This scene was just to demonstrate that aspect of life.)

Hugh sent a glance over to the newly resurrected ones. They were staring, gobsmacked. They had never seen people with wings before.

~~/*\~~

“I never get tired of seeing that reaction.” He commented later that day to Kasumi, once they were back home. “There was a time I had the exact same look on my face. At any other point in history, that kid falling twenty feet headfirst? That would have been the end of the party, and the start of a most terrible day.”

“Mm.” Kasumi agreed. “Every now and then, I get a reminder of how wonderful the world can be. It’s a little like falling in love. Every now and then, a day or two can pass without my remembering how lucky I am. Lucky to be here, lucky to be with you, lucky to have Megan…”

Hugh smiled, putting his arms around her. “Never, ever let me take you for granted, love. Never let me take any of this for granted. I don’t know if Miracles keep coming once you stop caring about them, but I never want to find out.”

Kasumi hugged him back. “Me neither.”

Just then, the door opened, and Megan came in. “Oh. If you two are having A Moment, I can come back later.”

Kasumi waved their daughter over. “How are the kids?”

“The kids are okay. Neither of them were much aware that they were in danger. The one that got his arm busted is a little leery about climbing the tree again, but I gave him a few lessons in how to test branches. He’s been healed like new, but the memory will make him more cautious for a while yet. The one that got caught before he hit has no idea he was in any danger. In fact, it took some doing to convince him not to climb up and jump, just to do it again.”

Kasumi snorted. “Witnesses in OS were told to avoid extreme or blood-sports, for exactly that reason. Part of me wonders why any of us still play professionally at all.”

“Don’t let dad hear you say that again, he still has season tickets at Yankee Stadium.” Megan teased. “Which I will enjoy using once you guys head for Europe.”

“Got a date for the games picked out yet?”

“I thought I might ask Trev.”

“Trev? You used to babysit that kid.”

“Yeah, seventy years ago. I don’t know if you noticed, dad; but we're not twelve years old any more.” Megan teased. “Oh, and there’s a truck coming up the driveway. Looks like a cargo truck.”

Kasumi blinked. “A delivery? I didn’t order anything.”

~~/*\~~

Hugh met their truck driver at the door.

“I’m here to install your Meat-Tank.” The man said. “Where do you want it?”

Hugh checked the invoice. Nick had sent it over as a gift. Hugh had heard of the invention, but had never seen one personally. It was about the size of a hot water heater, and they directed him to the kitchen. It was easily a match for the refrigerator in size and weight.

“What exactly is it?” Kasumi asked warily.

“It’s a synthetic protein that grows to match the genetic material that’s recorded in the machine itself. The proteins and genetic sequences grow to match the original, and lo behold, it’s ready.”

“So… It’s a synthetic animal?”

“No, it’s synthetic meat.” Their delivery man explained. “Back in OS, they were experimenting with growing human organs and flesh from stem cells. For transplants, skin grafts, that sort of thing. So one of the High IQ team at the Expo had the idea that maybe it could be done with animals. And they succeeded. But it isn’t a living animal, any more than a heart transplant from OS could have a pulse on its own. You’re basically growing a copy of one piece of a particularly well fed, particularly pampered chicken that’s most likely still alive and pecking at the grass somewhere in California.”

“So what’s in this tank is not alive, and never has been…” Hugh finished. “No life-force, no blood, no harm done to any domestic animal.”

“And we get to eat meat again.” Kasumi couldn’t help the smile. “If it’s… well, anything like I remember. It’s been centuries since I ate poultry. And even that was hospital food.”

The deliveryman smiled while he worked. “I’ll tell you a story. Back in OS, I worked as a personal chef for a man named ‘Hobbes’. He was… eccentric, which is a polite way of saying he was completely mad, but harmless. Every single night, he wanted the same thing for dinner. Coq au Vin. Chicken in wine sauce. Night after night for years, and years. I got pretty good at making it, even after I lost the will to ever eat again. Centuries later, I somehow got into this industry. I have one of these tanks in my own kitchen, and then I get a Blue Letter. Hobbes came back. Missed the centuries in between completely. I met him, and I had dinner waiting. You can probably guess what I served him… He said it was the best I’d ever made.”

Hugh and Kasumi laughed delightedly.

“You’ll have an adjustment period, of course.” The man said, checking the equipment. “As you say, it’s been a long time. But this isn’t a butcher shop. The equipment can only put out a certain amount of meat per day, and it’s basically enough for the two of you to have some. There are some families with two dozen mouths to feed, and there’s a lot of these machines on back order. And it’ll only grow poultry at this point, but the Brains Trust is working on adding variety, miniaturizing the equipment… This is what they call ‘proof of concept’.”

“Good enough to prove to the world that they can do more.” Hugh agreed. He’d been having conversations with his brother on the subject for a while.

~~/*\~~

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to cook anything involving meat.” Kasumi murmured. “And if I’m honest, I’m not sure I trust this machine.”

“Don’t let Nick hear you say that.” Hugh told her with a smile. “The days of food poisoning and allergies are long past, and I don’t know what else might go wrong. If there was something wrong about doing this, we wouldn’t be doing it. All that’s left after that is to handle the idea of doing something new.” He gave her a knowing look. “You have a problem with something new?”

Kasumi stared him down for a whole three seconds before she cracked, whining like a little kid. “I haven’t had meat in centuries and it’s cold and it’s slimy and I’ll have to touch it and everything!”

Hugh laughed at her tone, and after a moment she smiled a little, despite herself.

“Would you listen to me?” She chuckled. “Yesterday I was planning a European trip for cooking classes.”

“I don’t know why you need them. What can a class teach you that centuries of trial and error can’t?”

“If I’m honest, not that much. We'll be the oldest ones there by centuries. But I miss Europe.” Kasumi admitted. “I haven’t made a world tour in ages, and… We’ve never gone without anything we need, but there are some things that we can’t get easily on this side of the world. The Great Exchange means that we find it all out, but…”

“You miss traveling.”

Kasumi smiled a bit. “You proposed to me on the last world tour we took together. Maybe think of it as a second honeymoon?”

“I figure once every two centuries is fair.” Hugh deadpanned.

~~/*\~~

Travel was one of those things that never stopped evolving. Normally, a leisurely ride with Isobel’s Caravan, or a flight on the Airship Stargazer would have been their sort of ride, but they had a schedule to meet this time. The High-Speed rail that the Expo had created had been built, and once the concept was proven, other countries had done the same. The entire world was always on the move, with most brothers wanting to know more about the world. The vast majority of the human race had never traveled more than a few hundred miles in their lifetime. Many of the returned ones had no idea how big the world could even be.

Even moving at such fantastic speeds, the inside of the train was very relaxed. The seats had plenty of room, small spaces where people could work, or talk with each other. Hugh and Kasumi had been served a three course meal, and the rooms in the Sleeper Cars were small, but as plush as any household bedroom.

“Luxury trains were the norm back in the day.” Kasumi murmured to Hugh one night in their sleeper car. “They were signs of status and wealth, being able to afford a trip on something like the Orient Express. Nowadays, I think every train is like this.”

“Trains are bigger now too. Bigger than I remember, anyway. Built five feet wider, and so are the tracks. Gives us a lot more room to make it beautiful inside.”

“Wonder who came up with that idea?”

“Who came up with any of those ideas?” Hugh countered. “Streets in America were spaced by using the old Roman Roads as a template. The Romans had their roads made to the same width because of how their armies marched and their chariots rode, side by side. But Centuries after Rome fell, empires that hadn’t existed then used the same width when laying roads of their own with entirely different technology, for entirely different vehicles. If it made traffic more or less convenient two thousand years after the Roman Roads, they just had to live with it.”

Kasumi snorted. “Alec told me once that back just after A-Day, when they started getting the Rebuilding and Restoration Teams organized, one of the directives was how wide to make the roads. It was only different by a foot, and nobody could figure out why it was important that roads between population centers be that width. But the Ancient Believers had no idea why Quarantine laws were needed. They obeyed, and they found out why after they got Resurrected. I wonder if some of the instructions we’re being given will have some brilliant, deeper meaning a thousand years from now.”

“I’d be stunned if they didn’t.” Hugh agreed.

“Speaking of Roman Roads, we’ll be there in two days.” Kasumi commented. “We should sleep.”

“One thing we haven’t figured out yet is jet-lag.” Hugh switched off the light. “I’m glad we’re getting there a day early.”

~~/*\~~

“I do love Italy.” Kasumi said approvingly.

Hugh agreed. Practically everywhere in the world now was a mixture of the ancient and the futuristic, but Italy had been that way long before A-Day. Ancient buildings, and architecture that didn’t change much over the centuries, with all the new technology included; and cobblestone roads that had been in use since the First Century.

“I came past here on my first trip.” Kasumi said as they walked. Most people walked, with almost no vehicles visible on the streets. “I wanted to see what was left of the place. Alec told me stories of what happened in Those Days. I'm told the fighting was vicious in Vatican City.”

“Vicious.” Hugh agreed. “But not lengthy.”

The two of them made their way to a country house outside town. “See those hills?” Hugh commented. “When I was first in Europe, I was flying over those hills. The roads had barbed wire checkpoints, but those hills have barely changed.”

“Barely?”

“More houses. One on each hill. It’s the land apportionment.” Hugh pointed at the homes, some of them small, some of them lavish. “My guess is that one estate owned ten fields in OS, but now there’s one acre to each house. But you know something?”

“The fields themselves haven’t changed.” Kasumi nodded. “I know, I was here after A-Day, and those houses hadn’t been built yet, and those fields weren’t being maintained. Things grow. They need sun, they need rain; and for the most part the human’s job is to let those things do their work.”

~~/*\~~

Their tour group arrived more or less on time. There were six of them visiting the farmhouse, two married couples, three single sisters, one brother. They all wore a variety of clothing that suggested different backgrounds. While a lot of the modern world had settled into a fairly consistent style, there were always people who felt more at home in the clothes they grew up in.

People Watching was a talent that most experienced Witnesses had grown proficient in, and Hugh noticed the single man and one of the women in particular were looking at things with a kind of nervous awe. The electronics and architecture in particular. Those two were form a far different time, and hadn’t adjusted yet.

The house was large, and had plenty of rooms. The kitchen and dining room were merged together to make the biggest room in the house, with marble counters, solid oak construction, and cast iron for the ovens and cook-tops. There were solid pots and pans hanging from hooks, and polished flagstones for the floors and arches. It was beautiful and homey and the room felt like it was meant to have plenty of hungry people in it all the time.

Their host was a widow named ‘Tilly’ who wore a peasant blouse and a silver whistle on a chain around her neck. She had apparently taken over three different farms in the wake of A-Day, and had somehow managed to hold onto them by providing homes and work for over a hundred people who had returned. Her eyes said she was either an early Returnee, or had actually made it herself. Hugh suspected the latter, when he later found out that her own husband had not made it.

While nobody looked older then 25, Tilly had accentuated her age by her style of hair and clothing, making her seem more naturally mature than most women. Later, when she started helping people pick foods, and practice their culinary skills; Hugh would realize that this was deliberate. To the newly Returned ones, Tilly was a reassuringly maternal presence.

She didn’t go around the room like in a classroom. She just let everyone talk, and then quietly introduced herself to each of them as the morning went on.

But finally, she addressed them all. “Well, if you want to know about food, at least in this part of the world, then you should start at the beginning.”

~~/*\~~

They were all brought out to the fields, where wheat was growing across the entire hillside. There were spaces between the crops for carts and people to walk through the fields safely, about ten feet wide. Hugh and Kasumi worked on one side of the space, gathering wheat. A cart would roll up and down the space between, with piles of harvested wheat on it. The workers would toss their bundles on board as it passed.

“I can see at least forty people in these fields.” Hugh commented to his wife. “When she didn’t make some big introductory speech, I wondered if they took us on for free labor, but if they have that many people here…”

Kasumi was about to answer, when they suddenly noticed people carrying large picnic tables, easily the size of dining tables. Almost a dozen of them. While the visiting workers kept gathering wheat, some from the house set the tables down, end to end in the paths between the crops, and started laying tablecloths over them. Within minutes, the path had been turned into an outdoor dining room with tables over a hundred feet long, and benches set on either side.

Tilly came out of the farmhouse and blew the silver whistle loud enough that everyone on the hillside heard it. Hugh and Kasumi followed the crowd as they gathered around the table, and took a seat.

Hugh let out a low whistle as plates were put in front of everyone, and huge serving platters came rolling out of the house. Dozens of them. Enough to feed two hundred people, who were sitting along a picnic table that wasn’t there five minutes before. It wasn’t gourmet restaurant food, it was all… homespun. Baked vegetables, cakes, spiced fruits, all manner of breads; rolls and rice and pastas and gravy and soups and desserts.

Tilly let them get a good look at it. “I want you all to help yourselves. You earned it after helping with the harvest. But while you eat, I want you to pay close attention to how everything tastes, how it smells, how it feels. This is what you’re here for.”

Lunch was a leisurely affair, though Hugh noticed some of the workers slipping off early to return to various tasks. Tilly strode to the head of the table and called for attention from her guests.

“So, you’re probably wondering what all this was in aid of.” Tilly said impishly. “You’ve seen my field. Twenty men to harvest it in a day. But there are a dozen other fields growing the same crops around us. So a team of twenty people could make a complete circuit in two weeks, trading a day’s labor for their pay, and their food. If the farms all agree on a schedule, we don’t even have to rush things. This is what happens when a dozen farms can work together instead of in competition. And that’s where things went wrong in OS; at least on this topic. A tractor could harvest the whole field, if it didn’t mind tearing up the ground and putting poisons into the air. But those twenty people are employed every year. Ten times that number to tend to a collection of farms that cover the entire range.”

The guests all nodded, but the regulars toasted that one cheerfully.

“Back in OS, we spent thousands of years finding ways for more and more customers to be fed by fewer and fewer workers. The result was sucking the planet dry. We forced it to work for a while by forcing more fish out of the ocean, forcibly breeding more and more livestock in cages and pumping meat and greens full of chemicals to make it last longer on a shelf… And for all that, millions upon millions of tonnes of food got thrown away while millions of people starved to death. So the reason you guys started with the harvest? To varying degrees, the last five hundred years of OS had no idea where the food on their table came from. By the time A-Day arrived, the majority of children couldn’t identify a fresh vegetable. But the food you’re eating today? It all came from within five hundred meters of where you’re sitting right now.”

After that little speech, the last comment was enough to make Hugh applaud. He wasn’t the only one.

“But this class isn’t just for people from the modern era. It’s also for everyone else. I see people here who have no idea what they’re eating, since some of the ingredients grew in a totally different part of the world to where they lived; and transport in their time wasn’t such that they could try anything as exotic as an olive. I see people who have lived their whole day on a cup of plain rice, and have no idea how to prepare anything to eat at all; simply because they never had food to cook... And yes, some who lived on ready-made meals, sealed in plastic. That kind of manufactured foodstuff is gone, and you all need to know how to run a kitchen without a microwave, or a larder without plastic wrapped ingredients. So, be patient with each other, and with yourselves. I’m not going to make you all master chefs, I’m just giving you an idea of how food works now. In fact, how it always truly worked. Some of you have been here for centuries, living on recipes that you remember from OS, or have picked up from others. But if you were missing one ingredient, or had to substitute something, would you have any idea how?”

Kasumi winced a little, and Hugh squeezed her hand under the table. It was true that Kasumi had never had the chance to learn how to cook; having spent her childhood in hospital and most of her single adult life traveling, staying with others. She was profoundly good at following recipes she knew, even keeping hundreds of recipes in her head, but this was something else.

“But believe it or not, everything you’re eating today, you’ll learn to cook while you’re here.” Tilly told them. Hugh heard the single brother closest to them whimper at the thought. Hugh turned and gave him an easygoing smile, as Tilly went over to speak to the other half of her class.

“My name’s Jadu.” The man whispered, glancing back at Tilly, as though worried she’d overheard.

“I’m Hugh, and this is my wife, Kasumi.” Hugh said. He glanced over and noted that the other married pair had already struck up conversation with two of the single sisters, which left him and Kasumi to speak to Jadu, and the woman who was clearly out of her time.

“Leahe, daughter of Mirah.” The woman introduced herself when prompted.

Hugh registered the way she introduced herself, but didn’t remark on it.

“What did you think of our host’s speech?” Kasumi asked as everyone served themselves.

“I recognize the tone. She was telling us about a problem being corrected, but I recognized only half the words.” Leahe admitted. “I don’t even know what 'plastic' is.”

“It was an extremely versatile, airtight material that was made from refined petroleum. The oil ran out completely a long time ago, but the plastics are only just breaking down now, after five hundred years. We made it so disposable. Plastic cutlery, because we couldn’t bother to wash a spoon, plastic wrappers because it made things last longer, when we ate it immediately anyway… Billions of tonnes of it just… dumped after one use. It fills the refuse piles to this day. It took this world for people to figure out what to do with it.”

Leahe stared. “I know that you’re describing the worst days with the most impossible problems, but I still can’t comprehend what your generation was thinking.”

“Don't fret. I was there, and I don’t know what we were thinking either. Truth was, we just barely noticed anything beyond the end of our noses then.” Hugh gestured at the fields. “It wasn't as big a problem in the 40's, but we had supermarkets then. This entire harvest? Imagine having all of it fresh on the shelf every day. And anything you didn't use up you threw away. It was so easy to forget... what it took to make it all grow. Easy to think there would always be 'more'.”

“Waste was a huge problem leading up to A-Day.” Tilly suddenly appeared at their end of the table, putting another plate of rolls in front of Leahe. “More than a third of the modern world’s waste was food products. As the majority of the earth went hungry, the minority of the earth were morbidly obese; and most couldn’t even identify a vegetable. Most of what they ate was handed to them already chopped peeled and ready to cook.”

“Those of us that did cook?” Hugh put in. “We bought an ingredient to follow one recipe, and the rest stayed, cluttering up our kitchens until it spoiled because we had no idea what else we could do with it.”

“That's why I started up this course. Let me show you something.” Tilly pulled out her screen, and showed them a picture. “I took this picture about forty years after A-Day. We were using up the stores back then. Waste not, want not.”

Hugh looked. “Is that… instant cake mix?”

“Yep.” Tilly grinned. “Add water, add eggs, stir and bake. Basically, dehydrated cake batter. But here’s the thing? When they started putting this instant stuff on shelves, they didn’t need to add eggs.”

“I heard about this one.” Hugh nodded. “They couldn’t figure out why so few people bought it. Turned out, the women involved didn’t feel like they were actually baking. They wanted to be involved. Something so easy as adding water and putting it in an oven felt too indulgent.”

“They should have waited another twenty years. We had no problem being self-indulgent then.” Tilly remarked dryly. “So they changed the formula, so that you added your own eggs, and suddenly everyone’s standards on what ‘food’ was dropped dramatically.” She looked to Kasumi. “You’ve lived in this world almost half a millennium. Have you ever baked a cake without a recipe?”

“No.” Kasumi admitted. “I trade my leftovers with others for things I recognize, but…”

“We learn when we need to.” Tilly said forgiving. “You haven’t had the need to; because food is plentiful; and doesn’t need much processing. But if you don’t have something in mind, can you improvise?”

Kasumi winced. “Even after this long, I never really got around to learning how.”

“Why would she?” Hugh put in, defending his wife. “What she can make from memory is still better than anything I’d ever eaten, for the simple reason that food has improved so much over OS.”

“Exactly. Believe it or not, these classes became part of my ministry.” Tilly told them. “Whole generations of people who had no idea how to feed themselves without a foil wrapped, ready made meal, and a microwave.” She nudged Jadu. “Some people have to learn how to pray. Some people have to learn how to read. Some people need to learn how to feed themselves, in a world where hunger has been abolished, and food is plentiful.”

Leahe winced a bit as Tilly swept back to the other side of the table. Kasumi sent the woman a look. “Plentiful food is something new for you, huh?”

“I was… I was part of the Exodus.” Leahe admitted. “I was there when we were set free of Egypt.”

Hugh let out a low whistle.

Leahe smiled shyly. “That’s why I’m taking the class. Something my mother taught me; you can learn a lot about a place by what they eat… I spent almost all my adult life eating nothing but Manna; and there wasn't a whole lot of culinary skills required there. The simplest things, like how we prepare food now… I’m so completely outside of anything I recognize.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, sister; but we’re all feeling like that.” Jadu countered. “Your story at least brings you into some sort of alignment with the people here. Even if you don’t understand the modern world, you know God. I had never heard of Him.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You know what I did back in the day?” Jadu asked.

Hugh shook his head.

“I was a factory worker. Then I took care of my father when he retired. My father wrote propaganda for The Party.”

“Political party? Which one?”

“Doesn’t matter. At the time there was only one.” He said with a wry grin. “I only came into contact with the Christian nations once. I saw a church. I remember looking up at the crucifix of Jesus, and thinking to myself: This is their savior? A thin, pale man, beaten to the point of death, delirious from pain, looking like he could barely stand up under his own weight, even if he wasn’t strung up? I remember wondering why people would worship that.”

Hugh snorted.

Jadu nodded. “I remember thinking that it almost looked like the kid of thing The Party would put out about their enemies. I didn’t understand why a church would make its own symbol of power seem so… powerless. When I came back, and they told me that The Man in that image and his Father was actually the only hope of humankind, and it stuck me that I was right. It was propaganda. A world ruled by Evil had managed to get the appearance of pure Good on its side and made everyone ignore all the parts except for when he was twisted in agony. The Devil had taken his one moment of seeming victory and made it a global, household image that kept billions of people on their knees for two thousand years. Speaking as someone who understands how that sort of thing was done professionally, I’m in awe.”

Hugh snorted. “Never thought of that before.”

“We spent out lives in a state of siege. We were told that there were listening devices in our homes, and that we would never find all of them. We were told that only traitors expressed dissatisfaction, and traitors couldn’t hide. God wasn’t even mentioned. God was our Leader. I remember father telling me that I must never ask for more food, or warmer clothes, because to suggest that what I had been given wasn’t enough was treason.”

Leahe nodded. “We went through the same thing. Show a guard a defiant eye, and the whip would take it out of your head.”

“We lived whole generations like that, but we never complained about it… not even in private. Not even when we were alone.” Jadu admitted.

Hugh realized. “I suddenly get why you’re taking a cooking class.”

“I have never, in my life, had a choice of what to eat. Not until I came here.” Jadu said in quiet awe.

Leahe’s eyes were shining. “I know exactly how you felt. We were the same way in Egypt. Same way after Egypt in fact. Manna, three times a day. We actually had more variety under the whip. They fed us whatever was on the edge of spoilage.”

Hugh bit his lip. “Can I ask a question about that? I never really studied a bible until I arrived here, but there was one thing that I always promised I’d ask if I ever met someone from the Tribes.”

“How could we change our minds.” Leahe said for him. It wasn’t even a question. Hugh got the impression she had heard it before.

He nodded anyway. “Manna may have been repetitive, but that came later. Two weeks out of Egypt after four hundred years of slavery, and you wanted to go back?”

“Some of us did.” Leahe admitted. “It’s not an unfair question, but I think Jadu can give you an answer just as well as I can.”

Hugh looked the question to Jadu, who nodded easily. “Choice is scary.”

Leahe nodded. “Four hundred years of having our work, our diet, our clothing, our time off, our rations, our mealtimes, our lifetimes and even the moment we die chosen for us. We were… so broken. Faith made us walk proudly, and fear made us yearn to be away from the masters… But once we were out there with miles of wilderness in every direction, no water, few animals… Walls and chains do something to you, Brother Alman. They keep you in, but after a while they make you feel safe.”

“A method of control that didn’t change in four thousand years. My entire life, I never even dared to look further than what I saw out my own window.” Jadu smiled softly. “I was served a ration of food every day for myself. When my father became too ill to take care of himself, I took him in, because there was no other option for the infirm. My world was not kind to weakness, or respectful of those who had worked too hard for too long. When my father lived with me, I received a greater ration to share with him. When he died… I wondered if anyone would notice. Because I knew nobody would care…”

“So you didn’t report the death.” Leahe finished. “And you kept accepting his ration. Yes, I know others who played that trick on our masters once.”

“It worked for two weeks before I was caught.” Jadu admitted. “Last thing I remember was the police putting a bag over my head, and then I woke up here… And my guide took me to a table full of food. Incredible food. Fresh, wonderful food. ”

Leahe smiled, lost in the same wonderful memory. “Me too. There were pancakes, stacked high. Fresh crusty bread, still steaming from whatever oven cooked it. Gallons of milk, plenty of butter and cheese. Cream so thick that I had no idea what it was. Melons, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, olives, carrots, avocados. Strawberries in their hundreds, so red and juicy that it made my eyes hurt. Fresh fruit, both whole and sliced. Apples, oranges, pears, cherries. Potatoes, prepared in a dozen different ways. Peanuts and pineapples, fresh jam and honey in clay pots. Fruit juice for every fruit on the table…”

“Cool and crisp or hot and filling. Things that I had never known existed. Cakes and desserts and… and a hundred people sitting down to lunch, barely registering what a bounty it was… Because they ate like that every day.” Jadu bowed respectfully to Leahe. “Hugh, I had never, not once in my life, decided what I wanted for lunch. It was just handed to me, and I had to make sure I sounded enthusiastic when I said thank you, or they’d take it off me on the spot.”

Leahe nodded. “Until the Exodus, I had never chosen to take a break, or when to get up in the morning. Then suddenly if I wanted to go left instead of right, I could. For you, that’s an easy choice. One you make on a whim. But for me… I had never seen anything past the mud-pit where I made bricks. Day and night, nothing but mud, since I was old enough to carry it up to the frames where they shaped the clay. I had to make a choice, and I didn’t even know how to decide my own wardrobe.”

Kasumi nodded sagely. “A friend of ours, his name is Alec. He was a Witness in OS, made it all the way through. He talked about how most people then thought being a JW was too restrictive. Some of the Returned ones think the same.”

Jadu and Leahe laughed like that was the funniest thing they had ever heard.

After lunch, Tilly stood up again. “All right. So, now that you know the sort of things we’ll be talking about here, the next step it to get you settled in. Not just to the house, but to the community.” Tilly gestured to the table. “So finish up. In the morning, we’ll start work. Until then, feel free to look around the countryside. There is a market that sells our surplus. They know me there. If you are so inclined, examine the smells and tastes of everything on offer. If not, the train goes all the way to the beach, which is particularly lovely this time of year.”

~~/*\~~

“She was right about the beaches.” Kasumi said grandly, enjoying the sun.

“Mornings in the fields, afternoons in the surf.” Hugh grinned. “Yeah, I can see that as a pretty good way to spend eternity.”

Kasumi chuckled. “Swim?”

“Why not?”

Kasumi hadn’t learned to swim in OS. Or in centuries that followed, but when Megan had asked to go to the beach and swim, she’d noticed that her mother didn’t know how. Kasumi had gone to the same swimming lessons as Megan; and was now an accomplished swimmer. Like any other skill, it just took time.

The beach was long and wide, but had plenty of smaller coves, where the waves were low. The beach-goers usually followed the sand, and those surfing followed the big waves, so where they were was fairly quiet. As the two of them waded into the warm waters of the Mediterranean, it was almost like being alone in the whole world.

Kasumi swam up close to her husband and put her arms around him. “You ever think about it?” She teased. “We could find some tiny island, far from the rest of the world. Eat tropical fruits all morning, swim in the afternoons, sleep in hammocks under the stars, wake with the sunrise… just you and me and the sunsets?”

“Sounds tempting.” Hugh allowed. “I don’t know who gets assigned the small tropical islands, but I hope they’re at least willing to timeshare.”

Kasumi was about to respond when it suddenly became clear that they weren’t as alone as they thought. A large beak suddenly exploded up from the water and sprayed them both playfully.

The two humans squawked in surprise as the bottlenose dolphin chattered playfully at them, emerging to do a backflip back into the water.

Kasumi laughed delightedly. “Dolphins! I love dolphins!”

“Have you ever seen one up close before?”

“No, but then again, I didn’t see Angels for the first seventy years either…” Kasumi took a breath and dove down under the wave, to see the bottlenose hovering there, rotating slowly in the water, just playing around. Kasumi tried to copy the movements, but wasn’t nearly as graceful in the water. The dolphin didn’t seem to mind, delighted that someone was willing to play.

When Kasumi came up for air, Hugh ducked down under the water to take over while she caught her breath. After half an hour of this, the dolphin wheeled around quickly to nudge Kasumi’s legs. Kasumi wasn’t sure what that meant, but let herself float; and the dolphin swiftly came up to press his beak into the small of her back. Kasumi realized he was trying to propel her somewhere and Kasumi put her feet down again, holding out a hand to her husband.

Hugh smiled and waved it away. “You go. I’m going to head back to shore.”

“You don’t want to come?” Kasumi called.

“I’d love to come and play, but you’re the one with a dolphin in your back.” Hugh said lightly. “And by the way, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

Kasumi laughed delightedly, and picked her feet up from the sand, letting the bottlenose push her along with increasing speed. Kasumi tried to hold position, but couldn’t keep herself upright for long. The dolphin sped along to meet her halfway, suddenly coming up between her legs like a horse. Kasumi tucked herself low against the dolphin's back and rode the current, holding onto the dorsal fin for balance.

The dolphin powered around the edge of the cove like a motorboat, making pretty good distance for one human breath. Kasumi was in better shape than she had ever been, halfway to perfection, and her breath and muscle control was excellent. She wasn’t sure how long she had been under, but there was a terrific sense of movement.

~~/*\~~

While Kasumi was being taken on a tour of the ocean, Hugh walked the beach for a while. People playing games, building sandcastles… Hugh hadn’t built a sandcastle since he was a child, but there were a few people building a huge, elaborate one that looked like an actual castle. Hugh watched them for a while, impressed; when he noticed up toward the picnic area, someone else was watching them, waving him over. A slim man in a white suit. It should have been strange on a beach, but somehow it worked for him.

Hugh came over and noticed the man had a chessboard set up in front of him. “Don’t suppose you play?”

“Now and then.” Hugh nodded, and took a seat. “You brought a chessboard to the beach and didn’t have someone lined up to play?”

“The park and the office too.” The man grinned. “Tourists are my best chance. I saw you watching those people making sandcastles. They’re there every day. Every day they make an elaborate castle, every evening the tide comes in.” He set up the board for a new game. “Everyone has their fixations. You know why I picked Chess as mine?”

“Why?”

“Each game of chess has a number of possible outcomes. After each player gets four moves each, there are 288 billion possible combinations of pieces on the board. Four moves each. It’s said that the number of total possible variations is 10, to the 120th power. Put 120 zeroes after a ten, and that’s how many games of Chess there are to be played. There are more variations on chess than there are atoms in the observable universe. Other games have much larger variables, and more being invented every year. Chess is proof that Humans were made to live forever.”

Hugh snorted. “You were a mathematician?”

“I still am. That’s an industry that never falls by the wayside.” He made his next move. “How long have you been back?”

A question that has become the new ‘how’s the weather’. Hugh reflected. Those that had survived A-Day were now vastly outnumbered by The Returned. “Four centuries or so.”

“Ahh, an early returnee.” The Player smiled. “I believe that one day my memory will be perfect, and that means I will have every game I ever play memorized. Over thousands of years, I will be able to memorize every game I play, and that means I will be able to play every variation, test every response to every strategy.”

“Which would make you effectively unbeatable.” Hugh remarked. “Thanks for warning me not to play with you again a billion years from now.”

The Player laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Hugh made his next move. “My brother used to think that we may become lethargic, not at all interested in doing anything. You think you may get bored with chess after the first trillion games or so?”

“Chess has undergone many many changes in style and rules since it was first invented. It wasn’t until the time of the Renaissance that we even used pieces like ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ and ‘Rook’. Someone from the early days wants to play a game with you, and neither of you would recognize the board at all.” The Player countered. “If I ever do get bored, I could invent another way to play.” He looked up. “By the way, that woman I saw you with before, walking toward the coves. Is that your wife?”

“Kasumi? Yes, she is; going on three hundred years now. Why?”

“Well, it’s just the first time I’ve seen anyone use a live dolphin as a surfboard.”

Hugh looked, and his jaw dropped in disbelief as Kasumi came back into view in the surf. Surfers were lined up to catch waves, and somehow, Kasumi was powering along the crest of a wave, riding a dolphin. Kasumi saw him on shore and waved, having the time of her life.