But if life is regarded as emergence, displaying at each step in its evolution new properties that do not appear necessarily implied in the past and therefore could not be predicted from the constituent parts, then man can claim to be its most spectacular achievement.  For he has moved furthest from the limitations of the protoplasmic ancestry that he shares with all other living things.  More important, he continues to move away from it at an ever-increasing rate and even pretends now, probably for the first time in biological history that he can direct the course of his evolutionary march.  – Rene Dubos, Mirage of Health, 1959

Michelle stood at the kitchen counter, measuring herbs, vinegar, and oil for the salad she’d cobbled together from the remnants of faded vegetables languishing in their barren refrigerator, emptied by Bina’s ravages. The girl can eat, that’s for sure. As she whisked, she heard Bina quietly enter the house through the side door.

“Hey there!” she called without turning.

“Welcome home!” Bina came up from behind and encircled her arms, squeezing hard.

Michelle turned and reciprocated. She kissed Bina’s forehead. “I really, really missed you. Everything okay? Are you hungry?”

“Starving. I didn’t have much for lunch.” Bina pulled back and smiled warmly, Michelle reading genuine happiness, but also a hit of something else. She concealed her own response.

“Good. So am I. Early dinner. Go get washed up.” She hugged her again. “It’s good to be home again.”

Bina buried her head in Michelle’s hair and murmured, “I’m glad you’re back.” 

She’s almost taller than me.

“What time did you get in?” Bina pulled back and asked.

“Late. After midnight. You were conked out.”

Bina laughed. “So were you. I checked on you this morning before I went out. You were still wearing your shoes. I took them off and put the blanket on you. You just kept snoring.”

Michelle made a face and playfully pinched her. “I don’t snore!”

“Ha! Sure you don’t.”

As Bina turned away, Michelle caught another glance of something in her eyes that tickled her intuition. She had hoped Bina had put the argument behind her and they could resume some peaceful home life. What was this about?

She returned to her food prep but a glint from the back of the counter caught her eye. She leaned over and saw a sliver of glass, a tiny piece from the shattered picture frame leaning against the backsplash.

She carefully maneuvered the sliver to where she could pick it up, pinched it between thumb and forefinger, and carried it to the trash. She walked back to the counter, looked for any more glass shards, then picked up the picture frame. Adam and Bina, when she was little, sitting in his lap, beaming, his arms around her. She thought she’d cleaned it all up after the fight, but clearly, she missed some.

It all came flooding back, the evening before she left for the trip, another one of their fights.

***

“Are you ready yet?” Bina stood waiting while Michelle washed dishes.

“Just give me a few more minutes to finish this. We’ll get to it, I promise.”

Bina hovered until Michelle couldn’t put off the practice session any longer. As she feared, it went sideways quickly. Bina’s criticism and commentary were merciless.

“Don’t you know how to do this?”

“Why can’t you keep up?”

“That’s not how Uncle Adam does it!”

Michelle struggled but couldn’t get past the basic communication that was only the first level of meshing consciousness through the sensory exchange of the touch talk. Bina’s frustration blared through their clasped forearms, fingers vibrating and caressing in the complex codes they exchanged.

Even before their separation, it was clear that Bina was surpassing anything Michelle could do with her communication skills and ability to mesh with the groupmind. In the immediate aftermath, she tried to maintain some practice routine, but her contributions were quickly exhausted as Bina’s prodigious ability blossomed. Even knowing she was holding back her daughter’s development, Michelle avoided the practices, unused to and annoyed by feeling inadequate. Instead, she focused on Anirudh’s lessons handling the pistol, target shooting, slipping holds, basic disabling strikes that even a teenage girl could effectively deliver to the soft, vulnerable points on the human body, as well as physical conditioning and escape planning. She knew that this focus on Anidrudh’s legacy was more for her, and that she was avoiding the painful reality that even if she wanted to, she couldn’t help Bina progress because of her own limitations. She was an obstacle, and it hurt.

During the last practice attempt, Bina’s frustration quickly transferred to the reason for their separation from Adam.

“Why can’t we be all together?” Bina shouted.

“It’s not safe! That’s not going to work!” Michelle replied ineffectually.

“You don’t even try!”

“Bina, I…”

“I hate this!” she shouted through tears, storming off. The slammed door of her room shook the walls and the picture fell, shattering on the kitchen counter. 

Michelle left in the morning.

***

When Bina returned from washing up, Michelle put the salad on the table. Bina sat down and Michelle knew instantly that, despite her fourteen-year old’s best efforts, she withheld something important. Not eager for another battle, Michelle set the table, biding her time. The dance had begun.

Michelle brought over the rest of the meal.

“Hey, maybe we can do that dance party we talked about before the trip.”

Bina smiled. “Sure!”

That was genuine, Michelle noted.

She served the food as Bina chattered about her day, the pond, the little creatures she found in the mud, the changing of the seasons.  Michelle warned her about autumn hunters and the possibility of random encounters on the back roads or in the woods. The deciduous trees on the edges of the old burns would soon reveal the scars of the fires from years before, rendering those areas of the woods less safe without the cover of dense foliage. The wildfire cataclysm that cleared out the former residents made this area an ideal hideout, at least for now.

“You be careful around those dead trees,” Michelle cautioned, floating a rebuke from a different direction, probing.

I know you are hiding something.

“Okay, worry wart.”

Michelle took a deep breath and even before thinking launched into the familiar speech. “You know why I worry. I love that you are exploring, but you also have to always be alert. We have a great thing here, but we can’t count on it being safe forever. I just want you to stay on your toes.”

Bina made brief eye contact then looked down. There it is again.

“You’re right, mom. Oh, and there were woodpeckers on some of the big black trees. They make such a cool sound.”

Contrite, and a clumsy deflection. What’s going on?

“They’re hunting for the insects that are eating the dead wood. Those trees are the ones to stay away from,” Michelle responded, concealing her heightened receptivity to Bina’s demeanor. She could sense Bina detecting her scrutiny, and in turn amping up her own sensitivity. The feedback loop escalated quickly, both of them detecting and mirroring the others emotional state in the dance of wordless communication.

Bina chewed a mouthful of greens and nodded, flapping a protruding lettuce leaf.

Michelle continued. “It’s great you are finding all these places and creatures. It’s good practice using your senses. We still need to do the routines and keep working on your skills.” Michelle caught a flicker of uncertainty cross her daughter’s face. As advanced as her daughter’s abilities were, Michelle’s years of experience kept the power dynamic tipped in her favor. For now. Michelle pressed gently.

“So, what did you see out there?” She debated using a compulsion command and discarded that idea.  The juice would not be worth the squeeze.  Bina’s rage and the weeks of sulking the last time Michelle used that form of interrogation proved that it had to remain a tool of last resort, reserved only for imminent peril. This didn’t seem yet to rise to that level.

Bina feigned inability to speak with her mouth full of food, making a show of thoroughly chewing.  Michelle waited patiently, pushing vegetables around with her fork.

“Well,…” Bina started, then took a drink of water.  She cleared her throat. Michelle knew that Bina now knew that Michelle knew she was hiding something. Though it complicated her parenting, Michelle couldn’t help enjoying the blossoming of her daughter’s abilities.

Bina pushed her salad around mirroring Michelle’s movements, then stopped, aware that Michelle knew she was attempting that technique.

“Well, …” Bina repeated, while Michelle restrained the impulse to lean forward. She put another forkful of salad in her mouth, signaling an opportunity for Bina to speak without interruption.

“I saw a dog.” Bina waited for a response. Michelle nodded and chewed, concealing her concern.  Bina didn’t fall for the silence technique, until Michelle swallowed and looked up.

“And?” Michelle saw Bina’s flash of pride that she maintained control, winning that micro-contest. Let her think she’s in charge, her confidence now a tool to lead her to the admission Michelle sought.  She’ll learn from this as well.

“I didn’t get a good look. It was in the bushes watching me, then it left. It was no big deal.”

Michelle nodded, taking another forkfull and chewing, letting the silence drag on. Bina flashed confusion, relief, confidence. Michelle swallowed.

“What else?”

Bina hesitated.

“Well, it took me a while to find it. I had the tickle, then I used my senses.  It didn’t know I saw it.  Then it ran.”

“What did you sense?”

“Oh, the usual. Changes in sounds, the wind, movement of leaves, pattern breaks.”

Michelle nodded.

“That’s good. We can refine that more. Nice job.”

Bina smiled, easily disarmed by the praise. Michelle pushed away a flicker of guilt at how easily she manipulated her daughter using the techniques she desperately needed her to master to survive in the world full of people striving to hunt them to extinction. Michelle sprung her trap.

“So what else did you sense?” Bina paused, a flash of fear, then anger, then resignation.  

“There was someone else, someone with the dog.”

Now it was Michelle’s turn to struggle for control. Cold terror surged, and she took a deep breath.

“So?”

Bina shrugged.

“Nothing. I didn’t see them. In fact, I didn’t even sense them until after I watched the dog for a while.”

Like a switch, Michelle instantly changed mode.

“Deep icing,” she said, using the pitch and tone for the post-hypnotic trigger commands Bina hated so much. They’d deal with that later. Instantly Bina’s posture changed, slumping slightly in the chair, eyes unfocused and partially hooded.

“Ready,” she responded sleepily.

“Full sensory recall. At the pond.”

“Which day?”

“With the dog.”

“Ready.”

“Describe high level sensory experience before the dog until you sensed the second presence.”

Bina took a breath, then relayed the sequence of events, how she became aware of the dog, the subtle clues betraying its movements, following it through the underbrush, then seeing it alert to the other, preliminary assessment that it was a controller giving commands, then a faint trace when the focused attention directed at the likely spot, then both gone.

Michelle pondered the information, debated the costs and benefits of prolonging the session, then brought Bina out of the trance with the end command.

“Scarlet greenway.”

Bina’s eyes fluttered, then she focused on Michelle, glaring with cold fury, face reddening.

“Don’t do that yunk shit on me. You promised!”

“Bina, this is serious. You don’t see the danger…”

“If it’s so dangerous, why did you leave me alone for so long? Did you think of that? How that makes me feel?”

Michelle squinted, almost a wince, and looked down. She took a deep breath.

“I had to do that. You know why. I’m sorry. We can’t do this by ourselves…”

“Then why can’t we be with Uncle Adam? He can help protect us!” Bina’s eye’s welled, neck veins bulging. Michelle struggled to contain her own emotions and keep this under control.

“You don’t understand. Adam is party of the yunk, and the yunk puts us in danger. We…”

“I hate this! I HATE YOU! Don’t do this to me!” Bina screamed, jumping up, knocking her chair back, fists clenched at her side.  Michelle watched, helpless. Here was a perfect image of her younger self, the echoes of her fights with her parents long ago.

“You know why we’re here. The danger we’re in. We can’t play games. You know that.”

Bina stared at her, face crumpling.

“Don’t…do it.”  She spun away and ran to her room.

“Bina…” Michelle called after her.

The door slam resounded. The picture fell from the kitchen wall, shattering on the counter.

Michelle put her head in her hands, elbows on the table, rubbing her face.  Bina’s temper was so like her own, she had to keep reminding herself, just like her mother before her.

Fucking genes.

Now what?  Run?  Wait? Reach back out to the HI and make contact?

She looked across the table at the picture on the counter, the shattered glass another casualty, one of their few treasured personal possessions to make it through all the moves and running. The image in memory was indelible: Bina, Adam, and the cat, Bina’s chubby toddler arms restraining Caramel’s attempts to escape, Adam staring off but hugging Bina as tight as Bina hugged Caramel and her ragged stuffed bunny, Bina’s radiant smile framed by dark curls. Looking at it brought tears to her eyes every time. Adam’s resemblance to their father and his obvious, to her, affection for Bina were reminders of everything they’d been through, then lost—both their parents long dead, Michelle’s decision to move Adam to the school in Rexburg, Idaho, and Adam’s new life once he’d connected with the HI.

The picture was from the time they lived in rural Wisconsin, one of their many stops on the run. Bina had just started speaking. One day she pointed at a cardinal perched on a branch in the yard and blurted out “red bird!” to everyone’s surprise. Cardinals became the first of her many animal fascinations. Shortly after, Adam began her instruction.

Adam’s face had his usual flat expression, but Michelle knew from his posture, how closely he held Bina and the cat, how much love that picture communicated. Michelle was the only other person in his life he allowed to touch and hold him, and then only briefly, a major feature of his personality and specific needs. The three of them, Adam, Bina, and the cat were inseparable. Now Adam was somewhere else, Caramel killed during the attack that killed Anirudh, and the bunny gone.  

The last fourteen years unspooled in her memory, such a long time, but it felt like just yesterday. The chaos and destruction outside the Research Lab in Idaho, running, reuniting with Adam and the others from the McJames Institute where her brother learned to use his special neurodivergent advantages to join the emerging collective intelligence calling itself Homo iunctus, Networked Man.

How simple life before that was. Her petty sibling resentments growing up in Chicago because of Adam’s needs and demands, her inability to accept her parents limitations dealing with both of them, the feeling of being shortchanged. Now she was doing it all over again with Bina. She shook her head, pushing away the fruitless cycle of nostalgia, regret, and guilt.

When they began their life on the run, the multi-ethnic, rag tag group of refugees they joined always seemed on the brink of catastrophe. No matter where they moved, they never quite fit in, either because of the often-obvious disabilities of some of the group, or the multi-ethnic features of some that often marked them as outsiders in many communities. 

And then there was the liaison with Trey Isaac, the brilliant researcher who long ago surreptitiously drew Michelle and Adam into this world. Bitter memories about that betrayal and abandonment led to anger toward the groupmind. It was just before the Fast War, he visited their ganglion as part of the communication routine across the distributed networks of the groupmind. They had to shelter in the basement for weeks because of fallout concerns after the bombs and missiles stopped falling. The fear and anxiety led to a series of furtive couplings, feverish lovemaking while the others slept, that Michelle found as unsettling as comforting. Once the fallout warnings ended, Isaac disappeared, directed elsewhere to serve the purposes of the groupmind. Pregnancy followed, leaving Michelle to manage alone with her anger for those difficult months. 

Then in the eighth month of her pregnancy, Anirudh Thakur appeared, another refugee, his family associated with different ganglion of the collective intelligence, every one of them but him caught and murdered.  Shortly after arriving, he helped deliver Bina. Michelle and Anirudh’s shared grief and the joy of Bina’s arrival drew them close and despite the tragedies and their furtive existence in hiding, they fell quickly and deeply in love. Anirudh loved Bina as his own. The next several years were their happiest, caring for the extended family of children and young adults, some requiring substantial assistance, all the while dealing with and following the cryptic orders of the HI. 

Bina’s special skills became apparent soon after she spoke those first words. Under Adam’s tutelage, Bina revealed that unlike other neurotypicals, she could merge completely with the HI.

Her daughter’s rapid progress and prodigious skills fostered Michelle’s growing suspicion that her time with Trey Isaac wasn’t an accident, nor Bina’s astonishing ability a random occurrence. She now suspected she was bred, making her daughter an object of intense interest for the collective. She knew the day Bina told them about her experience meshing.

Bina let go of Adam’s forearms and looked up at her mother with a smile. “The voice says we should be ready to move again soon.”

Michelle and Anirudh looked at each other in shock. Adam sat next to her, impassive.

“Who says that? Uncle Adam?” Michelle asked, trying to stay calm.

“No, mommy. The voice. Uncle Adam listens, too, but it spoke to me. It’s all of them together, the home young, yun…the yunk. They said it.”

Michelle then always wondered at watching her brother hold his baby niece, attending to her in ways she never experienced with him, sharing with her things that Michelle could not know. In her less proud moments, it was envy and jealousy. 

Michelle’s white-hot anger with the HI that she had been manipulated so easily and profoundly was held in check by the happiness they felt, their little family within a family.  Bina grew and they settled into a routine of stability and safety.

Then, they were discovered by a lynch mob of zealots seeking to exterminate the freaks and monsters. Anirudh sacrificed himself to buy time for their escape. The attackers killed him along with others from their node who were captured. They were on the run once more, until Michelle took Bina and went into hiding, wandering until eventually landing here, in northeast Washington, almost at the Canadian border.

Had they been discovered again by this stranger at Bina’s pond? 

Michelle sat back, looking out the window into the darkness of the deep forest all around, fearful once again of unseen threats, her confidence in their security shaken anew. What might be in the woods beyond their little lot?

Run or wait?

***

Laying on her bed in the darkness of her room, Bina listened to her mother moving around, waiting to see if her deception succeeded, and wrestling with her doubts about the plan.  She hadn’t known whether she could exert the control necessary to insert the misdirection into the query process, deflecting her mother’s questions. She succeeded in confining her mother’s inquiry to the narrower conversation about the first day she saw the dog, avoiding any probing of subsequent interactions. Her new friend Danae, and their plans, remained secret.

Her mother’s reaction confirmed her suspicions. She definitely wouldn’t understand about Danae, and that Uncle Adam communicated with the grendels. This chance to go with Danae to see him and reunite the family might not come again.

She made up her mind.

NEXT