“Come on, eat the dirt for me big guy.” The big hulking rock monster sat and stared at me with the same dull expression as he always did. Leveling land was a pain, dirt was heavy and trying to level a small hill with nothing but shovels was basically impossible. We were reluctant to let Tony help with the project, but it was either sacrificing the excess dirt or working for several months to finish it.
“He is probably full, plus I doubt he likes being above ground for so long.” Liz was moving some of the dirt to the lower land. She dumped the shovel full of dirt into the small wooden wheelbarrow. Although she was right, Tony liked it in his little cave on the far side of the property. It was always a hassle to get him out of the ever expanding network of tunnels and after just a few hours it was difficult to keep him here.
“Fine. Go back to your cave, have fun eating dirt over there rather than where we need it.” Tony was like an overweight pet, he followed orders sure, but after a few hours of working he couldn’t be bothered anymore. I stabbed my shovel into the ground, if Tony wasn’t helping then we were done for the day.
I walked back to our ever expanding camp, it had been three months since Rein and Liz had grabbed Tony from Ohio. We had immediately started working on Phase 2, or the Germination phase as Myc insisted on calling it. We had fallen into a new but still simple routine.
The farming continued like normal, watering the plants when they needed it and weeding the fields. Letting Myc check the crops to see how they were doing, while also getting rid of any parasites or insects.. Otherwise a boring chore that we had to do at least once a week.
The factory had been constructed, Myc had grown some strange looking trees to produce the cellulose planks for building material. They grew from small patches of dirt in the otherwise solid floor, they were tall and straight with no branches or leaves. It was like someone took a tall straight branch and jabbed it into the floor. After a few hours of growing and cutting planks off, someone would grab them and adhere them together. Then when another set of planks was finished they would adhere the two planks perpendicular to each other. Creating a finished, stable, and strong product to use as the base for walls.
The cabins were replaced with the new wood, tearing down the old ones and allowing Myc to dissolve the old logs. Then setting up the new houses, they were still small singular rooms to sleep in and store any ‘personal’ stuff. I mostly just kept clothes and a small notebook with some ideas for new mixes of mutations that I wanted to try out.
A few other buildings were set up, the bunkhouses for new recruits, storage sections for the new planks. The only really cool one was the kitchen. Scarlette and I were trying out new recipes so that we weren’t just eating raw fruit. We had been making preserves and pickled fruit, and when the harvest was finally ready we could make actual meals. I was pretty excited about getting some real food around here.
Then finally was Myc’s tree, it had been deemed the Mother Tree by Myc and did not disappoint. Although it had only been in the ground for a few months it was nearly 30 feet tall and wide enough that you couldn’t get your arms around it. The roots could be seen spreading through the camp, we had even been cutting down or moving some of the older trees that were in the gardens, so that Myc could grow new ones.
Slowly but surely Myc had spread throughout the camp, slowly starting up some of the projects we had been waiting for. The lake was nearly crystal clear, the paths were slowly being turned into a soft but sturdy cellulose structure, and even a small section for when non-recruits joined to use the bathroom.
“Hey Nate, Tony done for the day already?” Cat walked out of her newly finished house, it was already painted. She had asked Myc to grow a small tree around the front right corner, it extended up and was hugging the roof. She painted around it to look like the tree was just the closest in a green and lush forest. Slowly it faded into the distant sun set, as leaves and flowers fell to cover the forest floor. She was getting really good at that sort of thing.
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“Yeah. He is probably getting tired of being dragged out of his cave everyday, it was barely a few hours before he refused to eat anymore.” We had made little progress in understanding Tony since his arrival. Myc had attempted to use moss to invade his system but without any organic parts left, nothing happened. Although Tony was bringing up small amounts of different metals and gems from the ground, guy had a knack for finding materials. There was a surprising amount of gems and metals in the ground, granted Tony was moving tons of materials nearly everyday, so it was relative.
“Well, maybe we can figure something out. I am sure it would make Liz happy. Anyway, how are you?” She looked at me with the same motherly expression she always did.
“Fine. You know that we are still bonded.” She was obviously trying to get something out of me, although I still had trouble figuring out the whole reading of other people. It was starting to get frustrating, I should have nearly as strong of a connection as Cat. However, for some reason I couldn’t get the whole point of actively reading people’s feelings and thoughts. I could look through memories and see what everyone else did, but the emotion part kept tripping me up.
“True, so I saw that you and Scarlette have been hanging out a lot lately. Is that a good thing or…” She left the question in suspense, trying to get me to acknowledge some point she was trying to make, I refused to play her games.
“Yes.” I stared dead pan at her, if she wanted something she would ask like a normal person. Instead of attempting to play games and get me to figure out what she meant.
“Fine. Are you going to ask her out or just sit and be dumb the entire time? I mean Rein and Liz started going out like a day after they met. All you have been doing is hanging out and playing games.” She gave me a look like I was part of some tv show and clearly missing the obvious signs. It was nice to be so connected to everyone, I never felt lonely anymore. When something happened there was always someone there to help and when someone felt down it was easy to cheer them up.
On the other hand, it also meant that you couldn’t have a moment of privacy or time to think for yourself because people like Cat or Niki had to have the last word.
“Hey I don’t have to have the last word. I just want you to be happy and I know you are a little slow with the whole reading emotions thing. So I figured I would tell you that Scarlette has been thinking about it and you guys should talk before we get so many new members that you haven’t got a chance.”
“Wow, you are being kind of an ass. I was reluctant to do anything because obviously you haven’t been looking through memories as you should. What I found out was that Scarlette has a kind of different view on relationships.” I wasn’t against people not having a typical American straight monogamous relationship. I mean if you were gay, bi, transgender, whatever I supported it, I didn’t understand why people had such a problem with it. Although I wasn’t sure that I wanted something like that, I understood that some people were that way, which didn't mean that I was though. Although it also felt like I was going to lose someone I cared about due to something as simple as being jealous or selfish, I was working through it.
“Ohhh, right she is into group things.”
“It is not group things, it is just polyamorous. I’m just working through stuff on my own and it seems she is fine with that. I mean we are friends and I just don’t really need anymore than that right now.” I was confident and going through other people's memories made it so much easier to get a different perspective on things. It made me feel like I wasn’t just supporting people being who they were, I was starting to understand them. Except for Niki’s weird crush on John, that I was still pretty confused about.
“Niki likes John because she is a perfectionist, while John is by no means perfect. In her eyes he is smart, strong, caring, and the one person capable of changing the world for the better. While she is not wrong, she is reluctant to see his faults as much as she overestimates his positives.” She said it like she had the line prepared. I questioned if she had similar thoughts of John after he saved her life, she probably talked to Myc and that helped her get a little more perspective on the situation. “Yes, Myc did.”
“Uhh, stop reading my thoughts for once.”
“You love it and I know you do. You are so afraid that people are going to reject you for being yourself. So when someone reads your mind and tells you that you are right or that they accept you anyways, you think about that all day so stop complaining.” She gave me a smug smile, she was right but I wasn’t going to say that out loud.
“You don’t have to, I already know.” She sang as she turned to leave, humming to herself as she walked through the ever changing gardens in camp.
I dropped the frown on my face and smiled, it was nice here no matter how little privacy we had. It would take some more getting used too, we all went our whole lives not connected to anyone. So getting used to the lack of privacy was fine, although occasionally feelings tended to snowball until you wanted to scream. But since everyone knew that you were getting frustrated they helped out, it was like meeting the nicest person in the world. You hated them because of how nice they were, but you couldn’t really because they never actually did anything wrong.
“Alright, time to see if I can fly.” With a quick turn to the woods, I proceeded out to a small hill that Myc and I were using as a test ground. Wings were hard, you had to specialize them for the massive increased weight or alter your body to accommodate more normal looking wings. It was difficult to find a nice even match between either change, but we were getting there slowly adjusting and changing till one day I would fly through the treetops.