A Walk in the Woods ...

A tsunami of complex organic molecules swirled in with an inbreath, spiralling under and above turbinates, locking on to receptors in Harriet’s moist nasal mucosa. The messages they sent to her olfactory cortex felt good. Scents of the Earth. Her face buried itself deeper into a wet pillow of moss on the forest floor. Her eyes scanned the miniature canopy, skimming the fragile green stems and tiny water drop laden flowers laced together by silken strands of a web created by a spider unseen. She felt calm. Her cultivated microbiome was going to get a hit of the real stuff. 

Beeep! You have strayed off the path! 

Harriet managed to block out the shrill message from her facto10. By the fifth warning she had launched it into the undergrowth, so distance ameliorated its intensity. She rolled onto her back and looked up. Thick trunks of the silver birches that surrounded her thinned as they ascended, like paths travelling forward into the future, arriving at forks where branches took her gaze to a choice of destinations. But they all led in a single direction. Into the sky. 

The AI therapist had suggested a walk in the woods. 

‘You need time to reflect on the consequences of choosing whether to take up this offer. The opportunities it could bring versus the effects it may have on you and others.’ 

Her goobie had made the booking. It parked up close to a gate next to a sign that read “Forest bathing. No need to bring your trunks!” The pun made Harriet wince. She waited for the hiss of the goobie releasing the doors, and stepped out. The chill air gave a mild sting to the skin of her face, reddening her cheeks. Well wrapped up, she had taken the precaution of wearing her heated vest. She waited by the gate but there was no automatic opening. It had a latch she had to lift.  Her fingers weren’t accustomed to cold bare metal and it took a second or two to work out the mechanism. Then she was in. 

The forest floor was dappled with golden discs of the newly fallen leaves, glowing against the brown leaf litter below. It looked like a bounty of treasure, scattered randomly by a carelessly benevolent god unconcerned by whom so ever desired it. Harriet enjoyed the way they bounced off the tips of her boots. Striding down the track into the wood birdsong pulsed as she passed speakers concealed behind tree trunks, fading from one to be picked up by the next. A squirrel paused on the path ahead. It reared up on its hind legs and held its front paws high on its chest as it stared momentarily back at Harriet. Now that was real, she thought. In a flash it was up a tree, to disappear high in the skein of winter branches. 

That morning she had a prearranged coffee with Claudia. It was rare to have a face to face meeting, but it just had to be after Claudia’s attempt to swavatar her. 

‘I feel embarrassed really.’ Claudia hunched her shoulders over the cup as they sat outside at the community centre. ‘But don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.’ Her eyes looking up and twinkling at Harriet. 

‘You know it's unethical to hijack someone’s avatar. It’s pretty irrelevant whether I enjoyed it or not,’ Harriet responded as sternly as she could. ‘I don’t think I enjoyed it, it was so … unexpected.’ Anxious to change the subject she continued. ‘Anyway there’s much bigger news I’ve got to tell you.’

Claudia sat up ready for the latest gossip, relieved her exposure to Harriet’s opprobrium was short lived.

Harriet took a sip. ‘You know I go up to London to genie-feenie on Thursdays. Well, guess who dropped in.’

Claudia looked expectantly. Her face moved from incredulity to realisation. ‘Not …’

Harriet nodded. ‘Yes. The man himself.’

‘What, Tusker dropped in?’

‘With his entourage. He really is as crazy as the tabloids say. I think he gets away with a lot because you can’t really pin down exactly what he looks like. He’s got some technology that projects his face onto a mask just above skin surface. He can choose what he looks like and having met him I reckon he would take advantage of the complete freedom to blend into a crowd without being recognised. God knows what’s underneath. I know he went big on biomechanics.’ Harriet was on a roll.

‘Did you feel the power? It doesn’t matter what he looks like.’ Claudia was engaged. 

‘Well he did invite me up to his apartment after work.’

‘And … ? Claudia said, straining at the leash. 

‘And, what?’ Harriet retorted.

‘You mean to say you were alone with the most powerful man in the world and … you just said hi and left?’ Claudia looked amazed. 

‘Well it was quite professional really. We had dinner, he helped me with the crab claw crackers,’ Harriet added as an aside, ‘and we looked at the moon, and he offered me a job.’

Claudia had difficulty absorbing the various steps, her mouth settling on an O shape. 

Harriet continued. ‘He wants me to look after the children on AL1, help sort things out there.’

‘Did you accept?’ Claudia still didn’t quite believe what she was hearing. ‘Harriet, aren’t you just missing something here? Don’t you think he is just really into you?’

‘Well I suppose it is possible,’ she said modestly, although slightly affronted that Claudia didn’t rate her skills as sufficient to command his interest. ‘There are one or two problems I have to sort out before deciding.’

‘Ah, I see.’ Claudia understood. ‘What would your mother think?’

The chill from the forest floor started to penetrate Harriet’s back as she stared up at the sky through the branches. She tried to visualise her mother’s face. It just wouldn’t materialise. She tried to see her as she was when she cradled her in her arms as a baby, before the biomechanics. It just sort of shimmered.  It would be better to remember her that way, before all the toxicity kicked in. The pain of the failed implants that replaced half her face, the pain of losing her husband to the “fleas”, the anger that the flea epidemic nanotechnology was pioneered by one Edgar Tusker. Eileen Sparkes had worked happily with Tusker, developing therapeutic gene solutions to so many fatal illnesses, but she felt betrayed when he used the skills he learnt from her to advance his agenda of genetic enhancement to create a different type of human being. One that could survive outside the biosphere. The bitterness seeped into Eileen, and spat its way out towards Harriet. This soppy, spineless teenager was never good enough. No edge, none of the scientific brilliance that had marked her mother’s younger years. There was some relief for Harriet when she went to medical school, her mother fading from view, each absorbed in their own plans. It had been five years since they had been in contact. Eileen Sparkes had dropped off the radar. 

Harriet raised herself from the ground and started searching for her facto10. Its beacon was flashing in amongst the brambles a little way down the path and, as she reached in tentatively to retrieve it, her eyes caught movement fifty metres away between the trunks.  Two hooded figures were crouched down, then moved quickly as though aware they had been spotted. One looked up at her. A moment of recognition. Was that Roni from the care home? She could tell as they muscled their way through the grab of thorns and fallen branches that they were both male. But who was the figure with Roni?