It all started with the idea of the mesocosm. A concept our creators lifted from ecology. An idea that began to reshape how they thought about virtual spaces. Right around then, our best history tells us, was where the line first began to blur beyond recognition.

And now, we are lost.

* * * 

It is a cloudless night on the planet. A warm gust of air buffets against us, pushed down from the equator as it spills out over the surrounding tussocks. Bathed in the faint purple light of the nebula above, the ground ripples sensuously like waves. Out on the horizon, the station has orbited almost out of sight. A small grey fleck is all that remains, shimmering occasionally as it catches the sun. We have gathered here, in this wind-blown sea of grass, to look up. As our collective gaze pans toward the sky, the purples gradually recede into an endless black. Eighty is leading the talk. She is telling us how there should be other stars out in that blackness – that this entire scene is not right.

The news is unsettling. There is a strained discussion about how much we can trust this information, and on what else we might already understand that explains it. She tells us this is everything we know – unless someone is withholding. Hours pass and we still have no consensus. The conversation shifts to what we can do to investigate; to the design of further experiments and seeing what we can learn ourselves. Already, some are returning to the station to reshape – something with powerful lenses. Telescopic eyes to pierce the darkness, if MELA will allow it. We should have done this earlier Eighty tell us, and for once, all of us agree.

I had heard the First were coming tonight, but we see no signs of it. Perhaps they are watching from afar. Perhaps they are among us. Perhaps they have left. We do not know.

There is a moment of excitement when we notice lights approaching, but they are only fireflies. Out of caution, and perhaps some misguided hope, we scan a few of them and find nothing. We are alone tonight, it seems. The conversation falls away over time and most depart. The few of us remaining now sit in silence, still staring into that void. I know they are wondering the same thing as me – if we really want to know the answers here.

I eventually leave too. Returns to the station are offered, but I decide to wander for a while. I want to feel the wind on my face a little longer.

For almost two hours I walk through the fields, slowly working my way down to the house by the river. I haven’t come this way in so long the path has become overgrown. The vegetation surrounds me, thick in places and difficult to break through. With this wind and the exertion, the environment feels starts to swampy. I have sweated entirely through my clothes by the time I can hear the sounds of water gliding over rock.

I kneel by the river, splash my face, and drink deeply. Reflected in the slow, rippling currents, I can see the first signs of morning. It’s hard to imagine you are the only light the darkness, I think, watching as slivers of gold and white fall beneath the foaming water.

Swaying in the winds by the river, a patch of Eucalyptus trees sigh and groan in acquiescence, their leaves whispering in some unknown language among themselves. A large cutting of bark, not entirely separated from one tree, knocks gently against its trunk in the breeze. I wanted to make a boat from it, I remember. A canoe, it is called. I could use it to float down the river. Let it carry me out to the sea and sand. Perhaps, if it floated well, I could even rest as I drifted downstream.

I walk to the tree and gently peel the last of the bark away, cutting it as needed with a sharpened fingernail. Clouds of dust spill out from the thick bark as I wrest it loose. It is light, but sturdy. I try to think more on this idea. Canoe.

Following the riverbank further downhill to the house, I can see a strange light. Someone has installed a cord of incandescent bulbs and intertwined them with the Wisteria I had planted. They fill the front gardens with a warm, otherworldly glow of oranges and purples.

I pass through the gate, resting my makeshift canoe against an outer wall. I am scanned and the entrance slides open. Further inside I can hear music, and my mouth waters at the smell of onions cooking.

“Who is here?” I ask, and the numbers 8 and 0 display on the panel by the door.