Phase Q/Return to the Island
In a vacuum. There’s nothing to it, right? Well, actually, there are different kinds of vacuum. The vacuum in certain heritage technologies is relatively full of air and other forces. Even the vacuum in space isn’t quite so empty. And the vacuum in Zone 77A?
Well.
Even to start with, that was no ordinary vacuum. No regular nothing. Instead, it held a jostling, buzzing, hyperactive kind of nothing.
The sort of nothing you can do all sorts of things with.
And somebody did just that.
In Zone 77A, amid all the uproarious violent tumult of nothingness, a spark lit. A fuse went. Something happened with all that nothing.
And then there was something. Again.
At first the something just sounded like a few breezes of air rushing against other breezes of air. A slight disturbance in the stillness.
Then the streams of air started wrapping around each other, twisting, turning, even bumping themselves into solid objects.
A light gatherer. A wind detourer. A chemical defense system. An underground network of water and nutrient exchangers. A vastly complex assembly.
The tree sways in the wind.
As it continues to serve its purpose – of cooling down the planetary surface – the tree passes the wind on to another solid object.
Swinging around freely, the other thing hobbles around joyously, like some kind of uprooted tree that nevertheless retains its living vitality. It interacts with the tree – ripping off a leaf, and commencing its own energy-processing sequence. Despite all the differences, this object also serves the same purpose, to cool the planetary surface.
The tree and the beast, and a host of others, go on living on the island, oblivious to their recent non-livingness. They pursue their purposes, living zestfully, as though they had been created with a clear sense of their purpose, and had gone about pursuing it ceaselessly since their inception.
Between the tree and the beast, billions of other planet-coolers bounce and dance and jump and glide, all part of the same intricate dance. In fact, the two creatures, simple as they seem, outright depend on the invisible community that surrounds and fills them. In a lot of ways, the invisible community is by far the more important.
Utility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And not all eyes are evolved to the same wavelengths. In fact, the invisible community is quite visible, if you have the right light sensors. And the visible creatures – trees and beasts and such – are quite invisible if you know just how to look.
A sharp crack rips apart the air. In the wake of the lightning bolt, thunder roars through the sky. The electric combazzle splits the tree in two and roasts the beast.
Above, in the sky, like in the ancient myths of the beasts, their creators wage war.
“You shouldn’t recreate an old mistake!” yells a flying Flowriser.
“Die, scum!” screams a Zonnyx-Triad hybrid.
You observe the warring factions. The Z-T’s seem like they’re surmounting.
You cry: “Hwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Phase Q: An interactive adventure.
