They weren’t men. They were boys. I was unable to tell if they were even teenagers yet. In a panic and at a distance I had not noticed, but as we were lead away by the rifle wielding Japanese soldiers I could tell that they were not adults. They smiled and joked with each other as we walked, and didn’t bother much about pointing the rifle in our direction. If I had wanted, I realized that I could have escaped at any time. There would still be risk involved though, and if I didn’t have to take a rifle bullet then I wouldn’t. Besides, once Aileen had enough time she would be able to make something to protect us from the rifles. She had in the past.

I watched her as we walked. Her head was cocked towards the boys, and she walked with soft footsteps. It was clear to me that she was listening. Before, when we had visited Germany, she had been silent for a long time while listening to everyone that walked around us speak. It had been eerie when after a few hours, she had begun speaking to nearby people with a perfect accent. They had thought she was native.

I wondered if she already understood what the boys leading us through the wrecked city were saying. To my eyes it seemed like they were confused by our appearance, but still positive that we were enemy spies or something. I didn’t understand a word of what they said, but they gave a mix of confused and suspicious looks that implied what I was suspected.

After half an hour of walking we were well clear of the city, and walked up to the top of a small hill. The landscape here was covered in hills, with mountains looming over these hills and the ruins of Nagasaki.

At the very top of the hill were a group of men. They wore ragged garments. Some looked like a type of prison clothing, but most just had old worn out military uniforms. I did not recognize the country of origin. A few of them wore hats that I felt I should have recognized, but couldn’t. I was no world war two history expert, despite my viewing of the occasional late night video on the subject.

As we approached them one of the men spoke, and their accent jogged my memory. I knew what country these men were from.

“Oi, mate! Who the bloody hell are you two now?!” he said, confusion in his tone and on his face.

I looked back at the boys with their rifles. They seemed unconcerned by the fact that the man was talking to us.

“We’re just…we’re just civilians, passing through! We’re not soldiers!” I replied.

“Yanks then?” The Australian replied, raising an eyebrow. “You look fightin age but that girl sure ain’t. What’re you doing here?”

I walked over to him and sat down, dropping my sore arms to my sides. I had kept them up in the air the whole time, and only now realized that wasn’t necessary. Aileen followed suited in dropping her arms. I noticed she was looking over at me and the Australian, and while her expression was indifferent, I sensed annoyance. The fact that we were talking was disturbing her listening to the Japanese boys speaking. However, I wasn’t about to explain to the Australian soldier that we needed to be silent so that my time traveling super human friend from the future could learn a new language. So I continued in conversation.

“We were just passing through. I have, uh, family here, so I was here visiting them. I don’t know about the girl. She’s just been following me.” I explained.

Aileen piped up, being her usual honest to a fault self. “I’m studying people!”

The Australian gave her an odd look, and then continued speaking to me. “So you’re one of them then..right? Err no, are you American after all?”

“Yes and no. It is complicated.” I replied, before sitting down beside the Australian. One of the boy’s walked up to me and pointed at the ground. He stamped his foot and said something, before he and his friend began walking away. Aileen started to follow, but one of them pushed her towards me and pointed at the ground. He said something, and Aileen nodded. She looked dejected as she walked back to us.

“Ah. I suppose this was an unexpected development then. Unfortunate. Welcome to captivity.” he said with a smile, before shrugging.

“What was unexpected? The bomb or getting detained?” I asked. I looked back to the city, pondering what the event would have looked like from here.

The man nodded towards the city. “Both for you. We were already in this pickle before that happened though. When the whole bloody city went up it was a right surprise though. Wasn’t expectin’ that.”

“Well, you all are a surprise for me too. I would have never guessed I’d find Australians in Nagasaki.” I replied.

“That is what this place is called? Huh, didn’t know.” he said. Then he held out his hand. “I’m Captain Walker by the way. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

I shook his hand, it was a very firm handshake. “My name is Elijah. I actually have a question for you. Are we able to leave here? It doesn’t look like we are guarded. Is there someone else watching us from a distance?”

The captain shook his head. “Nobody is watching us. Its just those two n**s.”

I winced at the slur. Even in my time, language like “jap” was considered very offensive. Here, it just rolled off the man’s tongue with ease. “Then why don’t you escape? Couldn’t you just run away?”

“Where to?” he replied, incredulous. “I don’t even know how to find this place on a map, and even if I did it wouldn’t matter. I know one thing, we are in Japan. Japan, is an island, like Australia. There ain’t no runnin outta this place. Their ain’t no swimmin either. We’re stuck.”

That made sense, and I nodded. “Do they treat you well?”

He shook his head. “The old guards didn’t. After this bomb hit, bless you yanks for it, our captors were killed or messed up bad. We got out and escaped the fires, and then sat around till these kids showed up. I guess they’ve decided they are in charge now. They’re nice. For the past few days they’ve at least tried to feed us.”

“I guess because they are kids they haven’t learned how to be cruel yet.” I said, pondering about all the terrible war crimes the Japanese had committed in WWII, and wondering if these kids just hadn’t been exposed to any hate for foreigners which had been imbued in much of the populace.

Captain Walker shook his head. “No. I’ve seen too much of this war, too many kids killing. They’re not innocent. Kids can be a lot worse than adults too. These two are just good, that’s all. If I’m being honest, most of these people aren’t so bad themselves.”

He looked towards the remains of Nagasaki, now gray and black rubble under a bright noon day sun. I expected sadness, anger, triumph, or something to be on his face. Instead, he looked indifferent. His stare looked like it carried for miles, well past the city itself, and into an unknown void. Behind him, I saw one of their comrades laying on the ground face down. His back and body were covered in bandages that one of his comrades was trying to change. As the man’s bandages were taken off, deep burns were revealed. Sheets of skin peeled off with the bandages, with fluids and blood oozing out of the wounds.

“You know it reminds me,” he said, pulling my attention away from the gruesome sight, “of a fire that happened near where I live. Six years ago now. There was this field near my home that burned up, and I walked past there after the fire. There were all these rabbits near the fence. They couldn’t get over it or through it when the fire started. So they were just piled up. Thousands of them. We’ve got a rabbit problem in Australia you know. On the other side of the country from me we built the longest fence in the world to contain them. But still, it was amazing to see how many they were. Burned.”

I didn’t know what to say, but I watched the smoldering remains of Nagasaki and tried to see what he was saying. Somehow, my next sentence came to mind. “People aren’t rabbits though.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“No, no we aren’t. But the rabbits didn’t make the rabbit problem. They just existed, did their thing. They lived. They didn’t deserve to get burned up, just like they don’t deserve to be hunted. But they did get burned, and we have to hunt them. It is the nature of things. It is all inevitable.” he said. “That is what I think about it, with this. You said this was a bomb right? That is the rumor going around her too. It was just one bomb. The biggest bomb ever made.”

“Yes, that is what it was.” I replied. “An atomic bomb. It uses the energy stored inside of atoms. Atomic reactions occur, and it makes a big explosion. It is very hot. The people in the middle of the blast just get vaporized.”

Captain Walker nodded. “Sounds terrible. You think you Yanks’ve got more of them?”

“No, these were the only two. America can make more though, and they will use them.”

“Well then maybe…maybe this’ll be the end of all this mess. Maybe they’ll bloody well figure out that they can’t win.” he said. There was a confidence in his tone, but his hopeless demeanor did not match up to it.

“It will be a factor in it at least. Nobody is sure if it will be the only reason, but Japan is preparing to surrender as we speak.”

His eyes went wide. Light returned to them. “So the wars ending?”

“Yeah.”I replied, “The war is ending. America is going to build a lot more of these bombs too.”

The man became excited, and turned to speak to his men, before becoming unsettled. “They’re building a lot more you say?”

“Many more.” I said, thinking about the power of atomic weapons, and what Aileen’s goal was. The girl was sitting on the ground a short distance away, playing with some insect there. Perhaps this was what she was looking for, though she seemed disinterested.

“Maybe…maybe there won’t be anymore war.” he said, his face hardening as he came to a more positive conclusion than I expected of him. “You know if everyone has got one of these, nobody would want to use them. Nobody would want this. They wouldn’t, would they?”

“I’ll find out.” I replied dryly. I stood up, and walked over to where Aileen was watching an ant. She was fascinated by it, and she played with it by putting a finger in front of it and letting it go around or climb over.

“So is this it?” I asked, “Is this how humanity will end?”

She shook her head, and spoke in a deadpan tone. “No. These little things will not destroy humanity.”

It took me a second to realize she was referring to the ants. “No, I mean the bomb. The weapon that destroyed the city.

Again, she shook her head. “No. Those little things will not destroy humanity either.”

“Little?” I said, though I meant it less as a question, and more of a response. “So, humanity becomes too large for nuclear weapons to destroy us?”

“No. Homo Sapiens do not go far from this solar system, before you go extinct.”

“Ok, so nuclear weapons had nothing to do with my species extinction?” I asked.

“Current data wouldn’t indicate no. We would have been able to verify this as the cause in my time had it occurred.” She said. Then, she gave me a curious look, and glanced at the ruins. “Why would these devices end the world. You said this was your kind’s first use of atomic energy. This is a beginning.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “You wished to see the worst that humanity had to offer. I’ve shown you death, oppression, and now this. The first thing we did with a new source of energy was to kill other people with it. That is terrible.”

Aileen cocked her head to one side. “This is not so bad. It is not the worst of your kind. I think it is beautiful.”

I was stunned by the statement, and somewhat saddened. How could this being be human? They didn’t seem to relate to a normal human being at all. Yes, her mannerisms were similar, but she didn’t act like a normal person would. “How could anyone see this as beautiful?”

“Nothing was lost.” she said, with assurance. “This place will be rebuilt. More people will come.”

Then she stood up and grabbed one of my hands. She looked at it, and placed her hand over it, hovering her hand several inches above mine. Her hand was a a bit smaller, and she smiled. You said that Manus Dei means ‘Hand of God’, yes?”

I nodded, then watched as a swarm of black particles appeared in the space between my hand and hers. The swarm grew and moved and shifted. Amid its center, I saw something forming. Then, materializing out of the swarm was a tiny loaf of bread. It was identical to any loaf of bread that you’d find at a grocery store, except small enough to fit in my palm. I had seen this before, and this was not the first thing that Aileen had created using her “Manus Dei”, but it was amazing nevertheless. To my best guess her Manus Dei was a like a nanite swarm that accompanied her everywhere she went. That was what I had taken from her explanation of it anyway, the rest had been too complicated for me to understand. It was invisible most of the time, and could do many impressive things.

“You do not have such a hand. You just have these hands. They are clumsy, difficult, and unwieldy.” she said. “And these hands made a light in the universe.”

I raised one eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Here, was the brightest place.” she said, her voice hushed, before looking towards Nagasaki. “A bright place in a dark universe. So bright.”

“You mean the bomb was hot. So?”

“That is amazing.” she said. “That is wonderful.”

I paused and thought about it. She was not wrong about the heat and light. The temperatures inside the blast reached hundreds of millions of degrees, hotter than the core of stars. The light would have dimmed the sun from our place on earth. Yet it was tiny compared to the sun, tiny compared to the universe.

“I still do not see how you find joy in it.” I replied.

She shrugged, an unusual usage of body language for her. “It was a warm place in a cold universe. It was like you and I, particles moving so fast in a still place. Humanity will use this again, to bring them warmth and light, to make your lives better, and to go many places. It will be wonderful, and this is the beginning. The beginning of where my kind came from.”

“And we will use it too kill each other I suppose too.”

“No, you will not. That would be stupid, and your kind is not stupid.” she said, confident.

“I’m glad you think so well of us.” I replied. I was a depressed person to say the least, but I felt a little bit of hope when she said that. Perhaps humanity was not so terrible after all, if this girl from the future could see good in us. If she could see hope for us.

“You are like me. How could I not?”

“I guess so.” I thought, but my heart was not following the positive train of thought. I had seen so much death and suffering in my travels with Aileen so far, that bringing a positive thought to mind was hard.

I looked back to the Australian soldiers. Captain Walker was watching me with an expectant and confused expression. I had forgotten that I was getting his answer for him, and that I had left our conversation hanging. I looked out from the hill towards Nagasaki, and then down the hill where I saw our two little Japanese soldiers, playing some game with one another. They seemed oblivious, in a childlike way, to the horror they were a part of and that they had experienced. It made me think of Aileen, who I turned to next.

From where we stood Captain Walker and his men would not see Aileen creating bread from nothing in her hands. I was blocking their view. Nevertheless, the effect was the same when she ran around me with the loaves in her hands, and began giving them to the Australian soldiers. They were all stunned, awed in fact, by what looked like a miracle. Questions followed, and Aileen answered them. Her scientific gibberish was understood by none of them, and it didn’t help that she spoke in short terms that didn’t make logical sense unless you were very good at putting together the puzzle of intuition and context.

She ran back over to me and gave me a another loaf of the bread. I now held two in my hands.

“Eat.” she said. “You need nutrients. You’ll feel better.”

I smiled, and looked at the soldiers eating away and marveling at the bread. They eyed Aileen and I with wonder, surprise, and suspicion. Well, I’d better not look suspicious, I decided, and bit into it. It was fresh, and warm like it had just cooled off after coming from an oven, and tasty.

“I asked for the best of humanity.” She said, as she too ate some of the bread. This was a surprise. When I had first met her, she had claimed to not need food. I followed suit and took another bite. I chewed it, and ate some more, before finally answering her.

“Are you telling me, that you want to see that first? I thought you asked for our lowest point, the worst of the worst.” I asked.

She paused a moment, as if to think, and then spoke with a slow and deliberate voice.

“I am telling you, that if this is too hard, or too much, that it would also be fine if you we found the part in your history which was beautiful - before all the terrible things. That extreme is also fine.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I’m sorry you have not learned much from this so far.”

“It is alright.” she said, grinning. “I learned much. For example, your species is happier consuming nutrients together. You have not been eating. You did not eat when I gave you sustenance. You ate when we ate together though.”

“What? Oh, I see.” it made sense, I thought, as I ate the food she had handed me. That was why she had handed food over to the Australians. I had thought she was perhaps showing a rare bit of mercy. In our previous trips she had been indifferent to suffering, and yet here she was feeding hungry people. However, the goal had not bee to ease their pain, but to get me to eat.

Something about that was very kind, even if I wasn’t sure if she was doing it to keep her human history tour guide alive or because she was trying to be genuinely kind. After all, she claimed to have empathy for all humans and living things, but never showed it much like a normal human would. She was still entirely unfazed by the suffering she had so far witnessed.

“How did you make the bread warm?” I asked.

“Little particles moving.” she said, which was the obvious answer, so I decided to question her further.

“No, but how do you get the-” and the thought came to me. It was a revelation that felt like a jolt of electricity. “-Aileen. I know it! I know where we need to go. Actually, it should help you and I both. I have someone I’d like you to meet, and a place I’d like you to see.”

Aileen looked up at me. There was nothing on her face to show visible curiosity, and she did not use any body language to show it, but I could see that in her eyes there was intrigue.

“We’re are going to go to a very warm place in the universe.” I said, confident that I had found the sort of thing she was looking for. Her face lit up with excitement.