"I tried three different grocery stores but didn't see a single bottle of water," my mom said. "Between the government taking all the supplies and people snapping up everything else it looks like there isn't going to be any more for some time."

I sighed, "Yeah we saw that too. We only went to our usual grocery place but they didn't have any water either. I wonder how long before people start hoarding soda and juice too."

It was early evening and I was finally talking to my folks on the phone. I didn't say anything about our unusual guest this afternoon, mostly I was just catching up on things with my parents and making sure they were both ok.

Dad was working on my new fox-ear-friendly headset, he was still really excited about that project. He spent about fifteen minutes telling me how he was taking apart and rebuilding an existing headset instead of reinventing everything from scratch. He was going to use a 3d printer to create the fox-specific parts and everything would be adjustable so it would be comfortable and there'd be no problem getting it to fit. After the info-dump he hurried off to his basement workshop again, which left my mom and I to talk about everything else.

Mom sounded like she was frowning as she replied, "That's certainly not as healthy, but I suppose if you can't get safe water then people will turn to processed beverages instead."

"Actually now that I think of it," she added, "I'm pretty sure hundreds of years ago they drank beer or wine because the fermentation process meant it was safer than their local water supply."

"Maybe?" I shrugged. "I'm honestly not sure if that'll make any difference in this case. I mean, whether it's beer or wine or soda it's all made from water originally."

My mom sighed, she was obviously worried about the future. And for that matter so was I. And I couldn't help thinking whatever Gaia's announcement was, it probably wasn't going to set a lot people's minds at ease.

"How are you all doing for food?" mom asked a moment later. "Are you going to be ok? If you need some help with groceries you let me know ok Tori?"

That made me grimace as I thought about all the supplies we had stuffed into the kitchen, "We're ok for now mom, don't worry about that. We've got plenty of long-term stuff stocked up here so we should be good for a while yet."

"How about you?" I asked. "When you were out looking for bottled water did you get anything else?"

"I did our regular weekly shopping," mom replied. "Actually speaking of food it's nearly six, I should probably start making dinner."

I glanced at the time on my phone then agreed, "Yeah same here. Take care of yourself mom, we'll talk again soon ok? Love you!"

"I love you too Tori. Stay safe," she replied.

After we both disconnected I headed out of the bedroom and back to the kitchen to start preparing dinner for the three of us. I didn't do anything fancy, just something quick and easy with some of the perishable stuff we had in the fridge.

The food was ready for six, and as we all sat down together on the sofa to eat I put the news on the TV. I figured if Gaia was making some kind of announcement the news would probably carry it or mention it or something.

Meanwhile Soneya had her phone out again, she was sort of half following the news anchors on TV and half keeping up with whatever information was coming out of the States.

There wasn't anything about Gaia or Mother Earth or anything like that, but the news did have more to say about the ongoing situations out west, out east, and in the USA. And unfortunately none of it was good.

The number of people who'd become sick continued to rise, and now they were starting to talk about how many had succumbed to the mystery illness. About the only thing keeping it from becoming a full-blown panic was so far it seemed like the problem was limited to some discrete geographical areas. There was still no official word about the changed water progressing upstream, nothing about it jumping the Rockies and getting into BC either.

In fact for a while the 'tainted water' was the only topic they discussed. They covered the situation here in Canada, in the USA, and discussed how similar problems were progressing in Europe and around the world. There were some more clips of politicians and health experts saying stuff we'd already heard them say, and while they made it clear the situation was serious they also kept a positive spin on it. Like the government was working on it, they were aware of the problem and taking steps to find a solution, all that sort of thing.

One thing I found kind of perplexing in all this was nobody seemed to be talking about those mountains or the earthquakes. It was literally only one week ago, and the mountains were obviously the source of the changed water, but neither the news people or the government folks had anything to say about it. They were treating the water issue as a separate thing, and ignoring the fact that only seven days earlier something geologically impossible happened across the entire globe.

By the time we'd all finished eating it was about half past six and the news had finally moved on to covering non-water-related local events. I was just about to take the dishes back to the kitchen when our small sister's ears suddenly perked up.

"Do you hear that?" she asked as she looked at me and Soneya.

I started to shake my head and the wolfgirl looked like she was about to say no, when we both heard it too. It started at a low rumbling sound that we felt more than we heard. A second or two later we noticed the more obvious sounds, like dishes and windows rattling.

I felt a shock of fear through me, "It's another earthquake!"

"Don't panic!" Soneya insisted. "It's really small, it's not going to hurt us."

She was right, but my heart was still racing. The faint rumble and the rattling lasted for about ten or fifteen seconds, then as it ended the power suddenly went out.

"My phone just went dead," the wolfgirl stated in a quiet uneasy voice. "Now I'm worried."

I checked mine as well then responded, "Mine too. It's like being back in the park again. Nothing electric is working."

"Do you think this is Gaia's announcement?" Lia asked.

"I don't see how," Soneya replied. "It's probably got everyone freaking out, but nobody's going to know what it -"

Suddenly the TV came back on, along with both our phones. There was still no power, but all three screens were displaying the same image. It was like a live videoconference, and standing there on the screen was Gaia herself.

"Hello humanity," she announced, along with a little wave. "Sorry for the interruption. And for those of you where it's night-time or early morning, sorry for waking you up. It's been one week, a hundred and sixty-eight hours exactly since I first knocked at your collective doors."

"I know you've all got loads of questions," she added, "So let me answer the most common ones right now. One, the power will stay out until I'm finished talking. Two, this power outage is global. Three, please don't pester your local utility company, it's not their fault and there's nothing they can do about it right now. Four, no I'm not speaking in your local language. You're all just hearing me talk in whatever language you understand best. Five..."

She trailed off there and took a deep breath. Then she almost glared out of the TV screen as she continued, "Who the hell am I? I'm known by many names, but perhaps the most common are Mother Earth. Mother Nature. The Earth Mother. Are you sensing a theme yet? Let's just go with Gaia, it's short and simple."

There was another brief pause, but she didn't look any less unhappy when she started speaking again. "So here we go humanity. It's time for a wake-up call. This planet is not yours, it's mine. You just live on it. You are my children, along with every other living thing. And I'm tired of you treating half of my creation like a toilet while you clear-cut, strip mine, and straight-up murder the other half. I've been sending you people warnings for the past century, and yes I know some of you have been paying attention, but have you changed your ways? No. You have not."

"You continue to dump tons and tons of chemical garbage into the air, the sea, and the soil," she stated. "In the past hundred years you've pumped enough toxins into the environment to poison yourselves and almost everything else. You've turned the rain to acid, and started turning the oceans to acid too. You punched a hole in the ozone layer, you've raised the global annual temperatures and are continuing to do so. Why? Why are you doing all this harm to my world and my children and yourselves?"

She glared again, "Mostly for the pursuit and accumulation of some little rectangles of paper. There's no higher goal or calling to some of you people than the acquisition of wealth. And in that goal you'll step on or shit all over anything and everything in your path, alive or dead, including your fellow humans."

She paused for breath before continuing her rant, "How many years in a row have you heard the phrase 'worst year ever' when it comes to climate change? Or seasonal storms? Or forest fires? How many species are you going to wipe out before you realize you've exterminated something you actually liked? Or something vitally important? How long are you going to go on treating your home, my world, like your own personal toilet?"

"That's a rhetorical question by the way," she added. "The answer is, you're going to stop very soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but the end is coming."

Gaia took another deep breath to sort of calm herself down before she moved on to the next part of her speech, "Here's the deal humanity. I'm giving you a taste of your own medicine. Yes, there's something in the water. And yes, it's bad for you. No, you can't do anything about it. Now you can experience the same sort of existential doom you've visited upon countless other species who are facing reduced habitat and a poisoned environment. And before you ask, no the water isn't harmful to any of my other children. Just you."

"But don't panic, I'm not looking to eradicate you lot," she sighed. "If I was we wouldn't be having this talk. I'd have done it and moved on already. What's going to happen is, assuming you don't clean up your act, roughly half of global population of humans are going to get sick. And of those, roughly half will die. Yes, I'm telling you right now one human in four is probably going to die. That's a global average mind you, locally the percentages can and will fluctuate wildly. And no, it's not random chance. The sickness is highly selective. What's the determining factor? You like to think you're clever, you'll figure it out."

"If by the time that global number has been reached you still haven't changed your ways then I'll simply move the goalposts," Gaia stated. "You know, like how you keep making international agreements on climate change and pollution control, then refuse to ratify them or back out a few years later or otherwise find reasons to ignore them. So if that happens, one half will become two thirds. When that number is reached, two thirds becomes three quarters. Then four fifths. And so on. Eventually you will either stop fucking up my planet by your own choice, or there won't be enough of you left to keep fucking it up in any meaningful way."

She glared out of the TV screen again and added, "Oh and if you double down or try and fight me in any way, I'll start moving those goalposts immediately."

"Now on to other matters," she continued as her expression softened. "One week ago today I invited forty of my children to represent me. And along with them I selected eighty humans to act as ambassadors. You don't know who they are yet, but you'll find out soon enough. Some of them will likely be making contact with your officials in the coming days or weeks."

"Thats us!" Lia suddenly exclaimed as her tail started wagging. "She's talking about us!"

Soneya and I exchanged a worried glance. The wolfgirl nodded, "I guess that's the job offer? Lia is one of Gaia's representatives, you and I are supposed to be ambassadors?"

"Seems that way," I grimaced. "Assuming we take the job."

Meanwhile the teen goddess was still talking, and all three of us quickly focused on the TV again so we wouldn't miss anything. Her expression looked sad now as she said, "Unfortunately, thanks to a few trigger-happy humans, three of my representatives and seven of my ambassadors have already been lost, before they even had a chance to begin their work."

Her expression became angry again as she stated firmly, "So let me make this clear right now humanity, because this is your one and only warning on this topic. If you harm any of my remaining representatives or ambassadors the consequences will be dire. And right now you're looking at up to two billion of you dying as the 'good' outcome. I don't think you want to find out what the bad ending might be like."

Gaia paused there to sigh, she seemed to take a moment to ground herself before moving on. "I know a lot of you are wondering what you can do to fix this situation? Your corporate overlords might try and convince you that you simply need to drive less, or just stop using plastic drinking straws, or boycott the competitor's product and start using this other one instead?"

She shook her head, "That's all bullshit and I'm sure you know it. Yes individuals can make small changes, but we all know the bulk of pollution comes from big industry. Blaming it on individuals and lobbying for individual reforms is just a smoke screen to distract you from the real problems and the real villains. As individuals the best thing you can do is pressure your leaders and corporate overlords to clean up their act from the top down."

"I'm not saying it's ok to waste resources or that individual pollution doesn't matter," she added. "Yes turn out the lights when you don't need them, carpool, use public transportation, reduce re-use and recycle. And for goodness sake don't just throw garbage on the ground! What the fuck is wrong with you people?!"

After another deep breath she got back on track, "What I'm saying is you can do all those individual things, in addition to the big jobs. Don't let your corporate overlords fool you into thinking it's all on you. Because most of it is on them."

"So let's start with the biggest one," the teen stated. "End the fossil fuel industry, immediately. The sooner you stop digging up carbon that was buried a hundred million years ago and adding it directly to the atmosphere, the better. End the entire petrochemical industry, end it now. You folks claim to be smart, I'm sure you'll figure out clean replacements now that you don't have any other choice."

She sighed once more, and she actually sounded sort of weary when she continued again. Not like she was tired as such, more like she'd had enough of this and was done with it.

"That's it folks," Gaia said as she shook her head. "The sooner you clean up your act, the sooner those of you who are sick will start getting better. The longer it takes, the more of you will be at risk and the higher the death toll. Try and fight me, try and hurt my representatives or ambassadors, things will escalate quickly. This is a fight you cannot win. I've existed just fine without you for more than four billion years, and I'll be just fine without you for four billion more. That's all I have to say for now."

A moment later the TV and our phones went dark, then the power flickered and came back on as if nothing had happened. The TV was still tuned to the news channel, and the two anchors were sitting there slack-jawed with worried looks on their faces. It looked like nobody knew what to say or how to react. Then they cut to a commercial break, and the first ad to come up was for a big luxury SUV. Which seemed pretty ironic, considering the message Gaia just spent the last ten minutes delivering.

Soneya reached for the remote and turned off the TV, then she slumped back and sighed deeply. "So you were right Tori. There was a plan, and all this stuff has been happening for a reason."

"Yeah," I replied quietly. "It's a lot bigger than I thought though. I guess I wasn't expecting it to be so... So bleak?"

The wolfgirl shook her head, "It's the end of the world. Or at least, the end of human civilization as we know it."

"Only if we don't start cleaning things up," I reminded her.

Except she and I both knew that wasn't going to happen. Even with Gaia's threat looming over their heads, neither of us believed the oil industry or the politicians that supported them would just give up and shut down.

We were all quiet for the next several seconds, until our small sister spoke up. And like usual, she was looking on the bright side of things.

"At least we got lots of food today," Lia pointed out. "We're warm and dry and we'll be well fed over the winter. We'll be ok."

I couldn't help smiling as I nodded in agreement, "Yeah. I think we will."

~ End of Book One ~

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