Mason gawked along with everyone else when he stepped out of the chief's hall. The settlement was almost entirely transformed.

First of all, there were trees inside the walls. Quite a lot of them. They came in different shapes and sizes, but all seemed tastefully and pleasantly placed in different places around the settlement. Mason knew at a glance what all of them were. Their age. How much water and sun they had and needed and what might live in their branches and trunks and…

He shook his head, shivering at the strange feeling of knowledge and closeness and understanding that assaulted him.

The entire surrounding walls had also expanded considerably, with new houses created accordingly, most of these in a new aesthetic of log cabins or…treehouses? From where he stood it was hard to tell.

The Temple of Gaia was just as giant as it looked in the patron screen. Mason was no expert on Greek mythology or history, but it seemed to him like of those ancient structures you'd find near the Acropolis. The Eternal Fountain sat just outside the chief's hall, a statue of a beautiful, pregnant woman pouring water from a pitcher that never ended. Mason had no idea how it worked.

"It's...amazing," Rebecca said beside him, and he took her hand and grinned. Haley and a bunch of other citizens started filing out behind them, and Mason winked at her before heading down.

"The water never runs out, and it's supposed to improve health," he shouted over the sound as they got closer. "Though I'm not exactly sure what that means. It’s just…well, it was cheap, and I figured it would be…nice."

Rebecca and Haley looked up at it with big smiles on their faces, the cool spray from the falling water just touching all their skin. People were shouting and pointing from all over Nassau, running out to look at and touch the trees and new buildings.

"Unbelievable." Phuong stepped up beside Mason and gawked at the largest tree. He walked over and sat beneath it and closed his eyes as he folded his legs beneath him, taking long, deep breaths. "Yes," he smiled, "I think I can get used to this."

"Let's go see the temple!" Rebecca pulled at Mason's hand, and he happily followed. The biggest change for him was a very obvious feeling of rightness like when he walked in the forest. Nassau no longer felt separate, alien. His feet didn't feel like he was wearing heavy shoes. His breaths didn't feel just a little too tight.

"You look happy." Haley was watching him with her radiant smile, and he couldn’t help but match it.

"I guess I am." He held her eyes and filled with warmth, knowing in that look, and in that moment, he would always share something special with Haley—an understanding of how it all began, and how far they'd come together. "Let’s go." He pulled her along with his other hand, running towards the temple.

They found Rosa somehow already inside. The entrance was entirely open, basically a cavern of cut stone covered on the outside in something like moss. A cobblestone path wound its way through in different branches, but every inch of space otherwise was covered in colorful plant life.

"I think these are Crying Violets," Rosa was running her hands over what looked like flowers. "These are extinct!"

Her hands and knees were dirty, her joy great enough it seemed she didn't notice or at least care about Mason holding the hands of the other girls. Even so, he let them go and nudged them forward.

"Go on, see what's deeper."

All three girls and soon other townsfolk walked the wandering temple path, marveling at the sheer bloody beauty of it all.

Mason followed, feeling strange—like he knew something about this place, like he had some memory of being here before, but couldn't remember what it was. He clutched his nymph charm but felt no difference. So he just kept walking, hoping seeing more would jog his memory.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

It became clear the roof of the temple was some kind of translucent material. It let sunlight pour in, the shade of the material shifting as if to let different amounts in at different times, and Mason somehow knew it was also capable of letting in water.

The depths of the temple was row after row of food crop, seemingly freshly planted. There wasn’t enough showing for Mason to tell exactly what he was looking at, but he had the same feeling of knowing what was edible and what wasn't. Finally, in the center of the temple, before the winding paths led you in or out, there was a single small oak tree in a cleared circle with no other life.

Mason practically shivered when he saw it. Flashing images of a huge oak flickered through his mind, piercing the cavern roof and growing far into the sky. For a moment he felt numb as he understood.

It was a Great Tree.

He stumbled to it and knelt, touching the branches with a trembling hand as he put his other to the ground and closed his eyes. He activated Speak with Nature. But he had no idea what to say.

Before he could think of anything, a wave of emotion struck him from all directions—a clamoring of excitement, like children wrestling and laughing with their siblings. From the tree he felt only a wise, and endless warmth—a belief in him, in this place, a hope for the future. Mason felt a tear drip down his cheek.

"May you grow for a thousand years," he whispered, trying not to think of all this as the trick of some robot God, remembering his own immortality and how he alone might see the tree grow to full size.

It all seemed so impossible, so insane. And yet Mason was beginning to recognize a kind of genius in whatever the hell was happening to him. That this entity…this robot God, might be creating something that had meaning—some deep purpose to be found in its insane experiment, this Great Game, beyond the cold understanding even of the thing trying to produce it.

"Are you alright?" Haley knelt beside Mason and stroked his cheek with a thumb.

"I'm fine." He smiled, pulling her into his arms. "I think we're going to be alright," he added. "I think we're going to do more than just survive here. We're going to thrive."

Haley nestled into him. "I'm glad," she said, appearing for the first time slightly hesitant as she met his eyes. "Because I think I'm pregnant."

Mason couldn't exactly pretend he was surprised. They’d been having a ludicrous amount of sex. A few months ago the idea of being a father would have terrified the shit out of him. But now?

In this insane world and place it seemed like the only rational thing to do. Producing new life was the only proper fuck you to all the death and terror and violence—a human echo of the new life of this strange temple. Homo sapiens planting their seed like the great oak, becoming vulnerable with full knowledge. We do this anyway, he told himself he saw in Haley's eyes. Amidst all the death and horror we survive, we go on. We aren’t afraid.

Mason pulled Haley to his chest, stroking her hair as he kissed her face.

"I suppose you're going to want to call our children something French,” he whispered, and Haley half sobbed and half laughed as she clutched him.

"If it's a girl, fine,” he went on. “But not if it's a boy. No son of mine will be named Jaques. Or Pierre. Or something."

"Hey come look what I found y’all, it's a flower that smells terrible! Oh.” Becky looked at Mason and Haley and got awkward quick. “What's all the weeping about?"

"Shut up and come here," Haley said, and the Arkansas girl shrugged and made it a group hug. Mason tried not to crush them both as he squeezed. He noticed Becky was still wearing her lingerie under her quickly worn pajamas. And they both felt so amazing, and smelled so damn good...

"I'm getting a little turned on," he said, and Haley gave him the stink eye.

"This is like a holy place. You're thinking about sex in church!"

"It's a Gaia church," he countered. "The whole thing is pretty much about...making new life. Maybe I should kick everyone else out for a few hours and we can..."

"You will not. They are to enjoy it." Haley's tone was harsh but her face looked devious. "In fact, there’s so much to see, they might be very busy exploring for awhile. They might not notice if we...slipped away."

"No," Mason agreed. "No they may not."

He stood and pulled his girls up, looking for the closest and least busy path out of the temple, planning his route straight back to the chief's hall.

As he walked he was distracted at the only thing that ruined the moment—not just the transformation of the settlement, but the wonderful, insane reality of imminent fatherhood.

He wanted to share it with Blake.

I hope you're alright, brother, he thought, and then maybe prayed to Gaia, whatever the hell that possibly meant. Bring him home. Protect him while I can't.

Yes he knew it was all some elaborate fiction put on by an alien robot. But the feeling remained—the recognition of a kind of beauty, or truth, like a great cathedral or a work of art.

Maybe a thing could be more than its creator. Maybe this place was less robot and more human than he thought—plucked from the mind of humanity more than anything. He hoped it was possible.

But if not—before he turned his mind to Haley and Rebecca and the future near and far, he finished with a thought just for roboGod, hoping the thing sometimes listened:

If my brother dies, I swear a holy oath in this place, on the life of my child. I'm going to wreck your stupid game, then somehow, someway, I’ll be coming for you.